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RIVERSIDE TEXTBOOKS 
IN EDUCATION 


EDITED BY ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY 


PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION 
LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 


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PSYCHOLOGY OF 
THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 
PUPIL USN OF PRINS 
BY iv 


L. A. PECHSTEIN, Pu.D., ee 
Li) din > a a: ws 
Dean, College of Education, University of Cincinn UGIZAL BERS 


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AND 


A. LAURA McGREGOR, B.S., 
Vice-Principal, Washington Junior High School, Rochester, New York 





HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
BOSTON > NEW YORK °- CHICAGO: DALLAS > SAN FRANCISCO 
‘The Riverside Press Cambridge 


COPYRIGHT, 1924 


BY L. A. PECHSTEIN AND A. LAURA MCGREGOR 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 


The Riverside Press 
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 


RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
TO 
A GREAT PSYCHOLOGIST 
JAMES ROWLAND ANGELL 


AND 
A GREAT EDUCATIONIST 


HERBERT SEELEY WEET 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
In 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/psychologyofjuniO0Opech 


EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION 


BEGINNING in large part as an administrative solution of a 
crowded building situation, but in part also as an attempt to 
provide departmental teaching in the upper grades under 
more advantageous conditions than could be provided in the 
grammar school, the junior high school has since passed 
through a number of stages in its evolution. In 1909 and 
1910 it was frankly adopted, in Berkeley and Los Angeles, 
because of its superior educational advantages. After a 
period of hesitation and experimentation, the junior high 
school has by now been accepted by both educators and the 
public as a desirable modification of the older 8—4 form of 
educational organization. The next step, and an important 
one, is to secure general recognition for it as an institution 
especially adapted to meet the peculiar needs of the early 
adolescent. As an organized institution the junior high 
school should now be expected to readjust its organization 
and work to meet better the developmental needs — physi- 
cal, mental, social, and moral — of widely varying types of 
boys and girls in their early adolescent years. This change 
has been fully effected in some places, is well under way in 
others, and should be made generally. 

Such a change calls for special organizations and adapta- 
tions, and for types of instruction which the older upper- 
grade organization and the first year of the high school do 
not provide. It should be recognized that the junior high 
school represents the creation of a new intermediate type of 


vill EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION 


educational institution, devised to meet the special biological 
and psychological needs of young people in their teens, and 
that the school stands, in its organization and purpose, mid- 
way between the class-teacher type of instruction character- 
istic of the pre-adolescent grade school, and the individual 
study type of instruction characteristic of the full adolescent 
high school. In particular, the junior high school organiza- 
tion of to-day should adapt its instruction to the peculiar 
psychological needs of the early adolescent through intelli- 
gent sorting and class placement, flexible and differentiated 
group study, failure prevention, the establishment of moral 
values and the right type of habit-reactions, proper indi- 
vidual and group contacts between the sexes, citizenship 
training, socialized activities, and vocational guidance. 

An understanding of the place and peculiar work of the 
junior high school, then, as it has developed with us as a re- 
sult of study and experimentation, calls for more than a 
study of its administrative adaptability as a part of an 
organized school system. Its work and practices and 
purposes, when properly conceived, being so thoroughly 
grounded on biological and psychological foundations, a 
clear understanding of its organization and work and pos- 
sibilities calls for an understanding of the biological and 
psychological foundations upon which the modern concep- 
tion of the school is based. 

This much-needed understanding the authors of the pres- 
ent volume have given us in simple and scientific form. 
Taking up first the different phases of growth, response, 
mental development, and personality of the pupil of junior 
high school age, they have presented the fundamental ele- 


EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION ix 


ments needed for an understanding of early adolescent 
physical and mental and social development. With these as 
a basis, they have then applied the principles laid down to 
the organization and conduct of a junior high school, as it 
finds expression in the work of instruction, the work of 
socialization, and the work of educational, moral, social, and 
physical guidance. 

The volume should prove to be profitable reading for 
teachers in the many junior high schools of the United 
States, for supervisory officers of school systems, and also 
for teachers and principals in our senior high schools, for 
much the same principles apply to the first year of senior 
high school instruction as to the junior high school work. 
The book should also form a very useful text in early adoles- 
cent psychology, and in the work and place of the junior 
high school, for use in teacher-training institutions every- 
where. — 

_ELiwoop P. CuBBERLEY 


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PREFACE 


Tuts book is written for one purpose — to present the stu- 
dent of secondary education with the codrdinated viewpoint 
of education. This dualism means that the best educational 
practice in a given field is placed side by side with the science 
underlying that practice. 

No argument is needed regarding the timeliness or neces- 
sity for attempting to present the real scientific facts regard- 
ing adolescent life and its educational handling. If the au- 
thors of this volume have any deep-seated views regarding 
the problem set for themselves they are as follows: 


(a) A science of education and, hence, a real profession of teach- 
ing, should rest primarily upon the scientific facts of pure 
psychology; 

(b) The application of psychological facts has been carried so far 
in the best adolescent (junior high) schools as to warrant a 
new contribution based on applied psychology; 

(c) In the codrdination of practice with its underlying science 
are found educational values of immediate worth to the 
earnest teacher and student of education. 

The book is an outgrowth of the experiences incident to 
the establishment of and experimentation carried on in the 
Washington Junior High School of Rochester, New York; 
conducting a training course for prospective junior high 
school teachers for several years at the University of Roches- 
ter; and, finally, the crystallizing of the codrdinated ideal of 
teacher training through the development of the College of 


Education of the University of Cincinnati. 


xii PREFACE 


The writers have had in mind the use of the book as a text 
for college and normal school classes in the psychology of 
adolescence and certain junior high school training courses. 
Hence questions for discussion follow the several chapters, 
and an extensive bibliography is provided. It is hoped, 
however, that principals and teachers in the upper grades 
and secondary schools will find values in the general reading 


of the book. 
TE Atke 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


‘GRATITUDE is gratefully expressed to President James Row- 
land Angell who, while associated with the Department of 
Psychology of the University of Chicago, laid the foundation 
for the basic psychological viewpoints of the writers. Pro- 
fessor Harvey A. Carr and Professor John B. Watson have, in 
their respective developments of the Chicago tradition, con- 
tributed both directly and indirectly to much that follows. 

The authors of this volume have been long associated with 
the public schools of Rochester, New York, the first while a 
professor of psychology and education in the University of 
Rochester, and the second as vice-principal of one of the 
first really noteworthy adolescent schools — the Washington 
Junior High School. These years have brought rich con- 
tacts with Superintendent Herbert Seeley Weet, former 
Principal James M. Glass,and many teachers and directors 
working experimentally in the establishment of the first 
junior high school of that city. 

Professor Harlan C. Hines, member of the College of Edu- 
cation faculty, University of Cincinnati, has assisted materi- 
ally by reading the manuscript and making many helpful 
suggestions. 

Finally, the published works, both research and system- 
atic, of many modern psychologists and school men have been 
freely employed, the writers striving to give due acknowl- 
edgment in each case. Especially, many investigations made 
by Professor Pechstein’s graduate students, notably Messrs. 
Reynolds, Hendrickson, Fuson, Bird, Hawley, Taylor, and 
West, and Misses Stebbins and Martin, are included. 












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CONTENTS 


NcHNERAD INTRODUCTION Nie ie iets peli si ubieineMile 
Psychology as a science — Nature and scope of psychology — 
Psychology in its applied aspect — Adolescent psychology and its 
applied aspect — Questions and problems — Selected references. 


SECTION I 


PSYCHOLOGY OF THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 
(GENERAL) 


Part I. ADOLESCENCE AND GROWTH 


Cyapter I. Puysican GRowTH OF ADOLESCENTS . . . 


Definition of terms — Growth and bodily parts — Gross bodily 
growth — Growth of the nervous system — Growth and func- 
tioning of the glandular system — Questions and problems. 


CHAPTER II. ANATOMICAL AND PHysIOLOGICAL AGE Ayan ds! 


Ages characterizing growth — Measurable factors in anatomical 
age — Roentgenograms as criteria of anatomical age — Physio- 
logical age — Factors affecting anatomical and physiological 
growth at adolescence — Questions and problems. 


CHAPTER IIT. PsycHoLoGIcaL AND PEDAGOGICAL ASPECTS OF 
ADOLESCENT GROWTH TERN, een aut By tia et 


Mental growth — Mentality and gross physical traits — Mental 
growth curve — Predictability of adolescent intelligence — Men- 
tal, physical, and physiological growth — Stages of growth — 
The several stages — Growth and pedagogical application to the 
junior high school —Physical training — School advancement — 
Industrial and part-time work — Mental development — Ques- 
tions and problems — Selected references for Part I. 


Part Il. Toe ADOLESCENT IN REACTION 


CHAPTER IV. THE StimuLus-RESPONSE HYPpoTHESIS . . 


The person versus the thing — Possibilities of adolescent reaction 
— Nature of the stimulus — Nature of the response —~ Questions 
and problems. 


11 


25 


34 


48 


XVI CONTENTS 


CuHaprer V. Tur INSTINCTIVE oR UNLEARNED ELEMENT IN 
RESPONSE | Oo oy es PORE Per VF i 


Types of unlearned tendencies to behavior — Neural aspect of 
unlearned behavior — Problem of classification — Types of 
classification — The réle of instincts in man — Trilogy of adoles- 
cent behavior — Adolescent behavior and the junior high school 
— Educational employment or control of instincts — How ac- 
quired reactions modify instinctive tendencies — Questions and 
problems. 


Cuyaprer VI. Tur HapituaL oR LEARNED ELEMENT IN RE- 
SPONSE e e e e e e e e e e 


Material for learning — The meaning of learning — Stages in 
learning — Complex learning situations — Certain laws of learn- 
ing — Instinct in relation to habit — Learned ways of behavior 
— Learned behavior illustrated — Questions and problems — 
Selected references for Part IT. 


52 


71 


Part III. Systematic Aspects oF ADOLESCENT MENTALITY 


CHAPTER VII. KNowING AND THE ADOLESCENT RKO ee 


General psychology of knowing — Recent important develop- 
ments — Conditions of adolescent knowledge — Significance of 
adolescent knowledge in adolescent development — Measurement 
of adolescent intelligence — Overlapping of mental ages — Gen- 
eral intelligence and typical adolescent groups — The educational 
treatment of adolescents — Significance of these studies for the 
junior high school — Other kinds of intelligence — Significance 
of these facts for guidance — Questions and problems. 


CHAPTER VIII. Emotion AND THE ADOLESCENT A 


General psychology of the emotions — Organs of emotional re- 
sponse — Genetic study of emotion — Adolescent emotions — 
Adolescent emotions as modified through experience — Control 
of emotional reactions — The opportunity of the school — Ques- 
tions and problems. 


CHAPTER IX. VOLITION AND THE ADOLESCENT a 


General psychology of volition — What volition includes — Ado- 
lescent volition — Adolescent ideals — Adolescent ambition, in- 
terests, and intelligence — Adolescent traits in their volitional re- 
lationship — Adolescence and the training of will — Questions 
and problems — Selected references for Part III. 


Part IV. Personarity In ADOLESCENCE 


CHAPTER X. Tue NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF ADOLESCENT 
PERSONALITY 


The meaning of personality — The study of personality — Per- 


81 


103 


114 


. 126 


CONTENTS 


sonality and school conduct — Cases of junior high school dis- 
cipline — Diagnosis and treatment of school failures — Magni- 
tude and rate of alleged changes at adolescence — Questions and 
problems. 


Cuapter XI. DistuRBANCE oF ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY . 


Pathology of adolescent mentality — Amentia versus dementia 
— Organic versus functional diseases — Major types of adoles- 
cent pathology — A “‘storm and stress’ period — Adolescent 
pathology and Freudian psychology — The Freudian beliefs — 
Criticism of these beliefs — Dealing with the maladjusted per- 
sonality — Questions and problems. 


Cuapter XII. Toe Morar ann Reticious PERSONALITY . 
Criminality and adolescence — Moral growth and training — 
The religious personality — Psychology of adolescent conversion 
— Psychology of adolescent doubt — The needs of the adolescent 
— The stimulus-response hypothesis as illustrated by religion — 
Questions and problems — Selected references for Part IV. 


SECTION II 


PSYCHOLOGY OF THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 
(APPLIED) 


INTRODUCTION TR SEO, See NT HTN Na cla Tae MTP ENOL OER 8 ak any 
Underlying principles of the junior high school — Coérdination 
— Differentiation — Exploration — Participation — Integration 
— Questions and problems — Selected references. 


Part I. INstrRuctTIOoN 


CHAPTER XIII. SupERVISED STUDY Ae RL SUR CMe 


Study supervision as a junior high school function — The nature 
of study — The factors of study — Divided-period plan of super- 
vised study — Supervised study in relation to the teacher — 
Questions and problems. 


CuaptTer XIV. Socratizep PROCEDURE IN THE CLASSROOM 
The class as a social group — Socialization of the content of 
studies — The project as a socialized content — Study proce. 
dure — Socialization of the lesson form — Advantages of social- 
ized procedure — Questions and problems. 


CHAPTER XV. INSTRUCTIONAL DIFFERENCES CORRESPONDING 
TO ABILITY GROUPING ccc, ieee 


Ability grouping — Teachers’ ratings as a grouping basis — In- 
telligence tests as a grouping basis — Achicvement tests as a 


Xvi 


135 


146 


163 


168 


ale’ 


184 


XVIll CONTENTS 


grouping basis — Combined test score and teacher rating as a 
grouping basis — Instructional differences corresponding to abil- 
ity groups — Adaptations for low-mentality groups — Adapta- 
tions for high mentality groups — Classroom adaptations with 
regard to ability grouping — Instruction in non-homogeneous 
groups — Questions and problems. 


CHAPTER XVI. FattuRE PREVENTION . . . .. . 


Administrative difficulties resulting from pupil failure — Mental 
and moral effects of failure — Relation of ability grouping to 
failure prevention — Causes of failure — Absence from school — 
Change of school — Wrong attitude — Remedial measures for 
failure prevention —Study-coach organization— The unas- 
signed teacher — Summer school — Questions and problems — 
Selected references for Part I. 


Part II. SoctaALizATION 


CHapter XVII. Tort ORGANIZATION OF THE ScHOOL Com- 
MUNITY e e e cz e e ° e e e e es 


The school as life experience — The junior high school a transi- 
tion school — The home-room section— Duties of the home- 
room teacher — Time allotments for the home-room teacher — 
The weekly class meeting — The school community — Ques- 
tions and problems. 


CHAPTER XVIII. Citizensuie TRAINING AND STUDENT Goy- 
ERNMENT } PENS AW ¢ ‘ ; 


Citizenship training as a school function — Factors in worthy 
citizenship — Citizenship training through the work of the school 
— Citizenship training through play — Student government as 
an organization for citizenship training — Desirable characteris- 
tics of a student government — Typical student government 
organization — Student government meetings — Questions and 
problems, 


CHAPTER XIX. AVOCATIONAL AND SoctAL ACTIVITIES . 


Necessity for training in worthy use of leisure — Club activities 
in the junior high school — The establishment of a club program 
— The entering pupil — Exhibit of work — Training in social cour- 
tesy and good manners — Questions and problems. 


CuHapTeR XX. InTEGRATING Forces In ScHooL CoMMUNITY 
diay Reman A Pes MULE A Ce UCD TN Ta ag ys 
Disintegrating tendencies in junior high school organization — 
School campaigns as integrating activities — Faculty meetings — 
The school assembly — Questions and problems — Selected refer- 
ences for Part II. 


213 


. 220 


. 226 





a a 


CONTENTS 


Part III. Guipance 


CHAPTER XXI. EpUCATIONAL AND VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 


Necessity for guidance of junior high school pupils — Nature of 
the guidance problem— Study of the individual — Question- 
naire method — Psychological testing — Personal conference — 
Home visiting — The school and the gifted child — The dis- 
semination of educational and vocational information — The 
guidance period and the course of study — Placement — Ques- 
tions and problems. 


ASHAPTE RUNS 114) LLEALTH GUIDANCE ee ea, 


Health inspection — Physical training — Health campaigns — 
Sex instruction — Work of the teacher in health guidance — 
Questions and problems. 


CuapTterR XXIII. Moran GuIpANCE . . . . .« .« 


The moral guidance problem — Moral training through the con- 
trolled environment — The ‘“‘temper”’ of the school — Character 
building by emphasis of traits — Concrete standards for honor 
recommendation — Inculcation of ideals — Direct moral instruc- 
tion — Indirect moral instruction — Individual moral guidance 
— Discipline in the junior high school — Factors in establish- 
ment of strong morale — Corrective discipline — Preventive 
discipline — Questions and problems. 


CHarpTtER XXIV. PsycHotogy AND GENERAL GUIDANCE 
BP OTOR SIM Cre sty cieiie sinvite ath irc se tye aW oR Sars Rt eal eavatar 
Résumé of psychology of junior high school pupil — Adolescence 
and growth — The adolescent in reaction — Systematic aspects 
of adolescent mentality — Personality in adolescence — Psychol- 
ogy of instruction — Psychology of socialization — Psychology of 
guidance — Adolescence and its educational institution in finality 

— Questions and problems — Selected references for Part III. 


INDEX 6 s e 6 ® e @ ® e ® ® ® a 


xix 


. 233 


245 


250 


265 


273 


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FIGURES 


1. Growtu Curves In Heicut or NORMAL AND SUPERIOR 
OUANTA Ta TER EEO IS 1h EOL Ee ag AIRE AUN Ne SCL LOE ier Au iva EAR Ig 


2. Menta GrowtH Curves oF NORMAL AND SUPERIOR 


ASTD IENY ot ure ie eee Ai cee re? tars EO e RO WME teat OT 
8. INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT CURVES OF NORMAL AND SUPE- 

RIOR CHILDREN (a Pru he Pane Rea ton ame tunel Den it eG 
4. Wiii-PRoriLE CHART, FROM DowNEY DN CMa het Leb 
5. IntustraTine Day’s LESSON UNDER SUPERVISED Stupy 173 
6. ILLUSTRATING A STUDENT GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION . 217 
7. INFORMATION BLANK SENT TO THE PARENT . .  . st. 285 
8. TracHer’s Recorp BLANK STAs atin Selma NEC RUMIT at Deo 
9. INFORMATION BLANK SENT TO THE Pupp . . ... 237 


10. Copr or Honor UsED IN A JuNtIoR High Scooon . . 254 
11. Front anp Back Paces or Puptu’s Report Carp . . 255 


12. InstpE Pacss or Pupiu’s Report Carp Ei ate Wik Hho? SOO 


TABLES 


I. VARIATION IN PUBESCENCE OF Boys IN A New York 
HiaH SCHOOT yi a is 0 ea ee 


II. CorRRELATION BETWEEN PuysitcaL GRowtTH AND MEN- 
TAL AGE e e @ e e e e e e e e 


III. INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENTS FOR SUCCESSIVE CHRONO- 
LOGICAL AGES eM) cote ab. oie oe un 


IV. Mean MEntTAuL AGE FoR ACCELERATED AND RETARDED 
Boys AND GIRLS Pe Mme ENR UA Tih on aTee tS at 


V. PERCENTAGE OF Pupits IN CERTAIN EFFICIENCY 
GROUPS Oe ay I a EGS ee 


VI. Frequency DistrRIBuTION oF ACCOMPLISHMENT Quo- 
TIENTS e e se e e e e e e e e e 


VII. CHronouoGcicaL, MENTAL, AND EpucATIONAL AGES OF 
Srx -PUPIIS (erie Re RC Pa ee es ar cee 


VIII. RELATION BETWEEN VOCATIONAL AMBITION AND IN- 
THLLIGENCE RATING: APPS Ae Wily Oe ei eee 


IX. ComMparRIson oF VARIOUS QUALITIES IN DISCIPLINARY 
CARIES 6) 0 We ty GTS Ud Marea Cae eae eA he Ae 


X. Teacuers’ Estimates AND INTELLIGENCE SCORES 
(Higuest (Group) Voie) os WAN save ae net ee 


XJ. Teacuers’ Estimates AND INTELLIGENCE SCORES 
(AVERAGE GROUP) Vi Onic edd tty ae sa 


XII. Teacuers’ Estimates AND INTELLIGENCE SCORES 
(Lowrst Group) PEE ET ee Ot | Soi Sen a ea 


XIII. Intustratineg FREQUENCY OF CHANGE OF ScHOOL : 


12 


35 


39 


41 


93 


93 


94 


121 


131 


187 


188 


189 
202 


ee ee 


PSYCHOLOGY OF THE 
JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 


PsycHouoey claims for itself a place among the exact sci- 
ences, and seeks to meet the demands laid upon all bodies of 
subject-matter making up the so-called special sciences. 

It has been long agreed that the typical sciences, such as 
physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and the rest, satisfy 
three definite criteria. First, each science has its own par- 
ticular field, and, for purposes of specialization and conven- 
ience, can set up boundaries of at least practical significance. 
Second, the science reduces its occurrences or phenomena to 
the controlled conditions of the experimental laboratory. 
Third, the data of the science — its laws, facts, and princi- 
ples — are statable in quantitative, mathematical form. 

In keeping with these criteria, it is safe to say that such a 
field as biology is properly rated as a science, since (1) the 
data of living structures may have practical discussion some- 
what apart from the abstractions of such other sciences as 
physics and chemistry; (2) biology employs typical labora- 
tory measures in studying its problems; and (3) biology 
states its findings in definite, hence quantitative terms. 

Psychology asascience. Psychology has had a checkered 
career in its evolution toward the sciences. In the first 


2 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


place, it had to become freed from the all too kindly influ- 
ences of philosophy and religion. In the second place, and 
of perhaps greater significance, it has taken many years for a 
decision to be reached regarding the field which psychology 
might legitimately claim. ‘The history of psychology re- 
veals several attempts at defining its field, and different peri- 
ods have considered it as the science of the soul, mind, con- 
sciousness, etc. When the trained workers in the science 
have had real difficulty in agreeing upon the area of labor, it 
is not to be wondered at that many “quacksters”’ claiming 
to be psychologists have come forward with an endless array 
of pseudo-scientific facts and have sold their wares with a 
success indirectly in proportion to the mentality of their 
purchasers. 

For the practical purposes of the present work, psychology 
may be defined as the science of human behavior. In keeping 
with the demands laid upon all sciences, psychology works in 
a field sufficiently distinct from the other sciences te warrant 
fairly independent handling. This is the field of human ac- 
tivity, interactions, or behavior. While it is often found of 
great, even though needless, difficulty to keep psychological 
discussions from incorporating too much of the broad biolog- 
ical field of which it is properly a part, it proves relatively 
easy to present the laws, facts, and principles upon which 
the behavior or activity of a human group or its several indi- 
viduals rests. Again, psychology as above defined makes it 
possible and essential to secure observational findings under 
the rigidly controlled conditions of the experimental labora- 
tory, the classroom, or other places of group or individual ac- 
tivity. Finally, psychology as a science has learned to em- 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 3 


ploy mathematical concepts in stating its findings, and, by 
means of its own yardsticks, has long since learned to state 
many of its data in the exact quantitative terms demanded 
of all sciences. 

The nature and scope of psychology. Some one has said 
aptly that the world with the human left out of it becomes 
one of physics and chemistry; with the human included, it is 
one of psychology. Only a brief moment of reflection is re- 
quired to show that any single occurrence, even such an ab- 
straction as a chemical reaction in a test-tube, becomes proper 
subject-matter for psychology just so soon as the observer — 
that is, the human being — is brought into the situation. 
When we consider further that the human is so organized 
that he must behave with reference to and react upon count- 
less influences — associates, newspapers, schools, politics, 
etc. — the range of possible discussion for psychology be- 
comes practically unlimited. 

This is exactly as it should be, for the time is past when 
the human can be viewed in any other way than as a biologi- 
cal organism. Everything entering to control the behavior 
of this organism must be an appropriate fact for psychology. 
At times the best approach to the problem of human behav- 
ior may be from the side of the mental powers expressing 
themselves; again, from the physiological, wherein the major 
concern has regard to the physical portion of the psycho- 
physical organism; and, finally, from the observations 
made external to the individual and quite apart from what 
may be going on either in his own mind or body. 

The fact of fundamental importance for psychology is, 
then, that of human behavior viewed in the large and most 


4 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


comprehensive sense. It is clear, of course, that, if a full ac- 
count is to be given of the facts of human behavior, quite 
substantial inroads will have to be made upon biology, soci- 
ology, neurology, medicine, anthropology, even physics and 
chemistry, for all these bring their facts to deposit side by 
side with the strictly mental facts in order that the human 
reactions may be understood. 

Psychology in its applied aspect. The ultimate aim of any 
science is not the complete and systematic grouping of its 
material and giving explanation to its occurrences; rather, it 
consists in predicting and controlling its phenomena in order 
that human welfare may be advanced. The knowledge of a 
science being made to function in the meeting of human 
wants elevates that science from the pure to the applied field. 

Psychology as a pure science concerns itself with the laws, 
facts, and principles upon which human behavior, viewed 
from all angles, rests. In its applied aspect, its concern is 
the prediction and control of human behavior. Unfortu- 
nately, psychological facts have often been employed for 
controlling human action for ill, as in the case of fake adver- 
tising, allegements of cure, etc.; but its more substantial 
forms exist in such applied fields as advertising, salesman- 
ship, personnel, social work, law, medicine, religion, and edu- 
eation. ‘The trained worker in each of these fields knows the 
laws, facts, and principles upon which behavior rests, has de- 
veloped a psychological technique and attitude, and applies 
these as tools in the prediction and control of the individuals 
with whom he works. 

Adolescent psychology and its applied aspect. For pur- 
poses wholly practical for furthering its discussion, psychol- 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION 5 


ogy may divide its very extended field into fairly small units, 
and discuss these separately. Hence may result individual 
in contrast with social psychology, normal with abnormal, 
pure with applied, subjective with objective, human with an- 
imal, as well as experimental, physiological, genetic, ethnic, 
ete. An old distinction is that between general and special, 
the former suggesting the behavior of the normal adult hu- 
man being; the latter the behavior in some non-adult period, 
in this instance giving such divisions as the psychology of 
childhood, or the psychology of senility. 

The psychology of adolescence is quite properly part of 
the field of special psychology. ‘The first concern of the pres- 
ent work will be to present the special facts upon which hu- 
man adolescent behavior rests. Then will follow the appli- 
cation of these facts to the prediction and control of the 
adolescent in his school or educational relationships. 

The general facts of adolescent psychology will include the 
physical and physiological aspects of adolescent behavior; 
the basic reacting factors of both the instinctive and learned; 
the systematic mental-factors of intellect, emotion, and voli- 
tion; and finally, adolescent personality. 

The applications of adolescent psychology to the educa- 
tional problems as faced by the junior high school pupil will 
include the psychology of study, with special reference to su- 
pervisory and grouping problems; the psychology of sociali- 
zation; and finally, the psychology of guidance. 

In carrying out the above program, the criteria of a sci- 
ence, especially the experimental and quantitative aspects, 
have been kept constantly in mind. This has made it neces- 
sary to distinguish between opinion and fact, and between 


6 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


questionnaire and research findings. In the endeavor to 
make the contribution of scientific merit, much interesting 
discussion often found in earlier texts on adolescence has 
been eliminated. This has been done not only because of 
the questionable accuracy of many previously phrased state- 
ments, but also because of the obligation set that all inclu- 
sions must have immediate relation to the particular prob- 
lem of predicting and controlling the behavior of the junior 
high school pupil. 

In passing to the text proper, it is veil to know that, in 
presenting Section I, there has been no attempt to make the 
general features of adolescent psychology simple and ele- 
mentary. The writer is convinced that there exists a tend- 
ency to administer altogether too diluted and “popular” 
treatments in the scientific field of psychology. Hence he 
presupposes a familiarity at least with introductory psychol- 
ogy. In so far as the reader does not readily see illustra- 
tions for certain laws and principles stated, he is referred to 
the concrete questions following each chapter, as well as to 
the applied aspects of adolescent psychology (Section I). 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. How separate and distinct are the special sciences, for example, phys- 
ics, chemistry, biology, anatomy, astronomy? 

2. Why have the definitions of psychology as the science of mind and sci- 
ence of consciousness been avoided by recent writers on psychology? 

3. Differentiate between psychology as the science of human behavior 
and behavioristic psychology. 

4, Has applied psychology problems to face different from those of other 
applied sciences? 

5. What practical claims for attention may the psychology of adolescence 
properly make in the present stage of educational development in the 
United States? 


GENERAL INTRODUCTION ? 


6. Make a list of twelve important problems of behavior with which you 
think adolescent psychology should be concerned. 


SELECTED REFERENCES 


Angell, J. R. Psychology. (1908.) 

Hollingworth, H. L., and Poffenberger, A. T. Applied Psychology. (1920.) 
Pillsbury, W. B. The Essentials of Psychology, chap. 1. (1921.). 
Watson, J.B. Behavior, chap.1. (1914.) 





Al 
7] ty Wee . 


SECTION I 


PSYCHOLOGY OF THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 
(GENERAL) 


; { 
free ee A 


Ne Pe sew o— 





PART I 
ADOLESCENCE AND GROWTH 


CHAPTER I 
PHYSICAL GROWTH OF ADOLESCENTS 


UNDER a strict definition of terms, physical facts may be kept 
apart from the psychological. However, if the student is to 
receive knowledge of all that enters into the determination 
of adolescent behavior, it becomes necessary to discuss the 
physical aspects of adolescent growth. This is done in Chap- 
ters I to III, following which the strictly behavioristic and 
mental aspects are treated. 

Definition of terms. Adolescence (Latin adolescere, to 
grow, to grow up to maturity) and puberty (Latin pubertas, 
puberty, the age of maturity, the signs of puberty, the hair 
on the chin, virility, etc.) stand as terms of century-old im- 
portance to denote the phenomena of “teen-age” growth, 
noted and significantly taken account of by practically all 
races, savage and civilized. Attempt will be made later to 
throw some statistical light upon the exact onset of adoles- 
cence and the phenomena of puberty. For the present one 
may think of the period of puberty as that initial stage of 
adolescence at which the individual becomes capable of be- 
getting or bearing offspring. This maturing of the reproduc- 
tive powers, with all their physiological, mental, and moral 
connections, suggests the essential character of the entire 
adolescent period. The youth is outgrowing the character- 


12 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


istics of childhood and is taking upon himself the powers of 
manhood. Biologically, adolescence means the period from 
the beginning (puberty) to the attainment of full growth of 
the sex function.! 

Since all human traits — physical, mental, social — vary in 
keeping with the normal curve of distribution, the onset of 
puberty may vary over a wide period of years. For immedi- 
ate and practical purposes, we may place the twelfth-thir- 
teenth year as the mean (average) chronological age mark- 
ing the onset of puberty among girls, the fourteenth among 
boys. The variability aspects of these generalizations, how- 
ever, need immediate emphasis, as a glance at Crampton’s 
oft-quoted results will show. (See Table I.) 


TasBLeE I. VARIATION IN PUBESCENCE OF 4800 Boys In A NEW 
York Hicu Scuoou (Crampton) 


| Mepran Ace | IMMATURE OR MATURING oR MATURE OR 
(Approz.) Pre-PUBESCENT PUBESCENT Post-PUBESCENT 


12.75 69 per cent 25 per cent 6 per cent 
13.25 55 26 18 
13.75 Al 31 


14.25 46 
14.75 60 
15.25 70 


15.75 85 
16.25 93 
16.75 95 


17.25 98 
17.75 100 





1 Throughout this work the concern will be with early adolescence; that 
is, the junior high school period, for the entire period, of course, extends to 


manhood. See Chapter III for the Periods of Life. 


PHYSICAL GROWTH OF ADOLESCENTS 13 


Growth and bodily parts. Before seeing adolescent 
growth in its totality, it will prove valuable to take up, in 
some detail, the specific physical changes of bodily parts dur- 
ing adolescence. Growth of the many different organs of 
the adolescing body may vary in several regards; namely, 
the beginning of the period of rapid growth, rate of participa- 
tion in the general growth changes, and the attainment of 
maximum growth. 


1. Gross bodily growth 

The skeletal system. ‘The growth of bones is marked by 
the rapidity and the completion of the process of ossification. 
In the first particular, the bones of the extremities grow 
markedly longer and thicker, while head and trunk bones 
show marked changes in general size, shape and proportions; 
for example, the chest grows laterally, face lengthens, lower 
jaw becomes heavier, second dentition is completed, ete. In 
the second, the remaining soft cartilaginous substances grad- 
ually ossify, notably in the bones of the skull, jaw, and the 
small bones of the wrist. 

The muscular system. Muscular growth is extremely 
rapid, as shown by the following facts comparing the muscu- 
lar system with the weight of the entire body: newborn child, 
23.4 per cent; 8 years, 27.2 per cent; 15 years, 32.6 per cent; 
16 years, 44.2 per cent. The muscles, individually and col- 
lectively, differ from those of the adult in accuracy, strength 
per unit of cross-section, bilateral symmetry, accuracy of 
codrdinations, etc., emphasizing, together with the likewise 
irregularities and inequalities of skeletal growth, the cause 
for much of the clumsiness typical for this or any other stage 


14 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


of very rapid physical alteration. Smedley has pointed out 
the superior strength of grip shown by adolescent boys, and 
Hall has emphasized both the individuality of growth of the 
various muscles, and that curves for strength do not parallel 
those for speed and accuracy of movement. 

The respiratory system. With the enlargement of the 
thoracic cavity, the vital capacity of the lungs shows marked 
increase. Whipple shows that this trait increases rapidly in 
girls from 12 to 14, thence slowly until 20, while for boys the 
rapid increase is from 14 to 19.5 years. The capacity is con- 
sistently lower for girls than boys at every age, and the ef- 
fects of special exercises and breathing habits are especially 
noticeable with the former. Both sexes are likely to harbor 
considerable unused lung tissue during the period, and tend- 
encies to anzemia, tuberculosis, etc., tend to become deep- 
rooted or unseated in terms of the attention given to chest 
development, good bodily posture, deep breathing, ete. 

In connection with respiration may be mentioned the 
marked changes in voice so characteristic for adolescing 
males. ‘This is largely muscular in basis, due to growth of 
the larynx and approximately the doubling in length of the 
vocal cords. Hence a final drop of generally a full octave in 
pitch for the boy, the change for the girl being primarily to 
achieve a richer and fuller voice quality with pitch remaining 
approximately constant. The pronounced voice mutation 
for the boy may begin as early as twelve, or, in case of many 
typical sopranos in male choirs, remain treble even to the 
late teens. During the period of mutation (ordinarily two 
years) the voice naturally “breaks” in pitch, becomes easily 
hoarse and rough, gets out of control, and may easily become 


PHYSICAL GROWTH OF ADOLESCENTS 15 


cracked unless singing in very high or low registers is care- 
fully avoided. 

The digestive system. The digestive system comes in for 
its share in the energies available for growth in marked ways. 
The stomach becomes larger, less vertical and tubular than 
with the child, and stronger in its peristaltic movements, 
with perhaps some alterations in the gastric secretions. The 
intestines increase in length and capacity; the liver, which at 
birth is one eighteenth the size of the body, becomes rela- 
tively smaller, reaching one thirty-sixth with full adult 
growth. Metabolism seems less rapid than in childhood, 
with a less rapid heat loss and relatively smaller heat produc- 
tion. The factors influencing metabolism so unfavorably in 
the child (insufficient and improper food, deprivation of ex- 
ercise, lack of fresh air, etc.) of course still function for the 
adolescent, but apparently resistance is becoming stronger as 
the energy reserve becomes stronger. Little is known as yet 
regarding the exact physiological, chemical, and especially 
the psychological factors involved in a science of adolescent 
nutrition. ; 

The circulatory system. Landois has shown how this sys- 
tem responds to the rapidity of adolescent growth. The 
heart ratio becomes increasingly large with the passage from 
birth to maturity (25:20 at birth, 140:50 at puberty, 290:61 
at maturity); hence the blood pressure at puberty is high. 
The heart muscles themselves increase in size and in the num- 
ber of contractile fibers. With some changes in the specific 
gravity of the blood (perhaps limited to girls) and a slight 
rise in bodily temperature (about 0.5° F.), there is presented 
the picture of the heart becoming rapidly adjusted in adoles- 


16 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


cence to send an increased and enriched blood supply to 
nourish and build up the rapidly growing structures and to 
supply energy for the new bodily functions. 

The reproductive system. With adolescence being charac- 
terized quite largely by maturation of sex, it is to be expected 
that the reproductive system shares quite largely in the gen- 
eral growth phenomena of the period. Of course this sex 
growth involves far more than can be expressed in terms of 
mere anatomy and physiology; it especially involves glandu- 
lar maturity and functioning, all sorts of secondary sex char- 
acteristics and mental phenomena. (See especially Chapter 
VIII, “ Emotion and the Adolescent.’’) The more physical 
facts are a general rounding-out of the body toward the 
adult form, especially the pelvic system; with the girl a 
striking development of the hips and mamme, and a deposi- 
tion of adipose tissue; both sexes obtain a new hair growth on 
the pubic and other erogenous areas, this likewise extending 
to the face and often the trunk of the male. The reproduc- 
tive organs proper show marked increase in size, as well as in 
changed internal structure pointing to the capacity to se- 
crete the reproducing cells (spermatozoa and ovum), as well 
as the sexual autacoid largely conditioning the development 
of secondary sex characters. 


2. Growth of the nervous system 
Little neural change. Comparative neural anatomy offers 
little data to the student of adolescence. In gross terms, 
there is practically no adolescent increase in brain weight, 
nor in cord and nerve tissue. Psychologists have under- 
taken to find neural parallel for the always stated augmen- 


PHYSICAL GROWTH OF ADOLESCENTS 17 


tations of the psychic life of adolescence, notably (1) “‘the 
awakening of new instincts with their resultant emotions, 
and (2) the elaborating of intellectual life in general and the 
marvelous possibilities for the individual that lie in this di- 
rection. The tendency to make neurological findings fit 
psychological beliefs is well shown by the following: 


Pe. 


There is now no doubt about the processes of cell division being 
completed at birth. During the pubertal period the number of 
mature cells doubles, the new cells being developed from granules; 
and, according to the same authority, Kaiser, followed by Hall, “‘in 
the boy of fifteen, the volume of cell bodies is already, on the aver- 
age, one hundred and twenty-five times their size at birth’’; thus 
there occurs during a year or two of early adolescence a remarkable 
and significant cell development in the form of functional maturing 
and probably awakening of brain tracts hitherto dormant. All 
this accounts for the new instinctive tendencies and new emotional 
experiences, which come to occupy the center of the psychic stage 
and so largely dominate the conduct. But, while these important 
cell and tract developments are taking place, there is going on an 
equally important extension and ramification of the fiber processes, 
especially into the higher thought areas of association. First come 
the tangental fibers, connecting the different parts of the cortex; 
then the systems of fibers among the cortical cells slowly evolve, 
the evolution of some continuing until late in life. It seems cer- 
tain, also, that the later years of adolescence are almost as epochful 
as the earlier years, since the brain increases enormously in com- 
plexity after sixteen, the growth extending into regions that were 
less rich in early adolescence. This rapid extension and developing 
complexity of the various fiber systems seem naturally to furnish 
the physical basis for the growth of intelligence which character- 
izes adolescence and takes the form of rational thought, higher 
logical correlation, independence in opinion, and esthetic appreci- 
ation. Thus it would appear that Aristotle was wise, without 
knowing the physical basis of his doctrine, in assigning fourteen as 
the age at which the education of reason should begin. 


1 Pringle, R. W., Adolescence and High School Problems. (D. C. Heath 
and Company, 1922.) 


18 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


The correctness of all the inferences just made relative to the 
causal relations existing between known developments of brain 
structure and the rapidly maturing psychical powers finds much 
support in the fact that poor nutrition, from whatever cause, 
always checks the structural development of the brain and retards 
in a serious way nearly all mental growth; hence the inference that 
the two phenomena just described, not only parallel each other, but 
are causally related. Beyond doubt, the foregoing emphasizes the 
fact that this is the formative period of life; and we have, as James 
and others have pointed out, in this structural maturing of the 
brain, the physiological basis of personal development; it is the 
time par-excellent to “help nature.” 


Much of the above is neurologically in question, and the 
psychology is, in the judgment of the writer, quite inaccu- 
rate. No new instincts appear at adolescence; no marked 
growth in intelligence, with special reference to “rational 
thought, higher logical correlation, independence of opinion, 
and esthetic appreciation,” is shown by the growth curves 
of intelligence; emotional enrichments are quite probably 
largely determined by new glandular attainments and result- 
ant autonomic activities; the bulk of the psychic phenomena 
of adolescence is due not so much to an adolescent renais- 
sance as to (1) the gradual accumulation of experience in the 
form of habits and modifications made in unlearned ways of 
behaving; (2) the wider range of social situations in which 
the maturing individual has to move by virtue of social pres- 
sure; and (3) the physiological maturing of the sex functions. 


3. Growth and functioning of the glandular system 
Glands; duct and ductless. The significance of glandular 
functioning in all animal existence, and especially for puber- 
tal and later adolescent growth, is just coming to be recog- 


PHYSICAL GROWTH OF ADOLESCENTS 19 


nized. While too little is known as yet regarding glandular 
changes at adolescence, enough facts have been established 
to warrant a fairly extended description, at this stage of the 
discussion, of the fundamental characteristics of a few typ- 
ical glands. Added reference will be made when the psy- 
chology of adolescent emotion is treated in Chapter VIII. 
By glands is meant the peculiar cellular groups of effectors 
or expressive organs (sharing herein with the skeletal and 
smooth muscles) functioning primarily in the digestion of 
food, the regulation and control of growth and metabolism, 
and in the elimination of waste materials from the body. 
These functions are mediated primarily through secretions 
delivered through definite outlets (duct glands), or absorbed 
directly into the blood stream (ductless glands). Among the 
former may be cited the glands of the stomach (pyloric and 
fundic), the three pairs in the mouth cavity (parotid, sublin- 
gual, submaxillary), pancreas, liver, kidney, and the sweat 
and sebaceous glands of the skin. Among the latter, or en- 
docrine glands (these all producing an autacoid substance 
which is passed into the circulatory fluid, and ultimately pro- 
duces effects on certain organs similar to those produced by 
drugs), may be mentioned the thyroids, suprarenals, pitui- 
tary, pineal, pancreas, and the sexual glands. In general the 
duct glands largely are innervated by the autonomic nerv- 
ous system, and are highly modifiable by habit influences.! 
The ductless or endocrine glands connect up directly with 
the several divisions of the autonomic nervous system, and 


1See the classical works of Pavlow, Lashley, Cannon, and others, and 
bring into conjunction with the conditioned reflex, as subsequently treated 
in Chapters VI and VIII. 


20 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


play a stellar réle in emotional behavior. The emotional 
features of adolescent life bulk far larger than the intellec- 
tual, and the reader must henceforth “pull to earth” such 
emotional signs as adolescent love, hate, rage, fear, “pep” 
and “drive,” depression, etc., by relating them quite di- 
rectly to the results of glandular growth and activity. The 
principal endocrine glands affecting adolescent behavior 
merit a few words of special treatment. 

Thyroid. The thyroid apparatus is situated on either side 
of the larynx and windpipe. The autacoids of the parathy- 
roid seem to prevent to some degree the over-exertion or dis- 
charge of nerve cells, and to exert some metabolic influence. 
The thyroid proper plays a tremendous part in the growth 
process. Experimentation has shown that the early removal 
or spontaneous atrophy of the organ results in a marked ar- 
rest of bodily growth, especially skeletal, delayed develop- 
ment of the generative organs and the cortical cells of the 
cerebrum, dry skin, thin hair, pale and puffy face, swollen 
abdomen, fontanelles remaining open, etc., this describing 
that form of growth arrest known as cretinism. 

In cases of thyroid atrophy (myxcedema) after adolescent 
growth is attained or well in process, many of the above 
symptoms appear, and in addition a lowered sensibility and 
behavior in general, diminished metabolism, increased depo- 
sition of fat, decreased sex powers, etc. This symptomology 
tends to clear up with the feeding of thyroid substances. 
When too great an amount of the thyroid secretion is admin- 
istered, the picture resultant is practically the equivalent of 


1Cannon, W. B., Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage. 
(D. Appleton and Company, 1915.) 


PHYSICAL GROWTH OF ADOLESCENTS 21 


that found in exophthalmic goitre so often found in adoles- 
cent girls (occasionally with the male), namely, nervous ex- 
citability, lower blood pressure, rapid and irregular pulse, 
flushed and perspiring skin, perhaps dilation of the pupil, oc- 
casional great excitement, sleepiness, tremors of the limbs, 
and a marked decrease in body fat. In addition to its power 
to increase the excitability of the nerve cells, the thyroid 
must grow and function normally if the generative glands are 
to develop perfectly; otherwise, sexual infantilism generally 
results. 

Suprarenals. The adrenals, in close connection with the 
kidney, consist of two parts: (1) cortex, probably function- 
ing for the development of the sex organs; and (2) adrenal 
medulla, degeneration of which brings a remarkable lower- 
ing of the entire bodily tone (Addison’s disease) and removal 
always resulting fatally. Administering the autacoid, ad- 
renin, sets up the customary conditions established automat- 
ically through increased glandular secretion and discharge 
during intense emotion of any kind — the liver releases its 
stored glycogen or sugar, this providing an easily assimilable 
food for the muscles and other tissues; coagulation of blood 
is hastened, and constriction of the small blood-vessels re- 
sults (Cannon). This entire group of responses resultant 
upon adrenal functioning are to be viewed as “factors in the 
preparation of the body to meet the demands of a crisis and 
the emotion as the awareness of these changes.” In addi- 
tion to the marked réle played in “building-up”’ the emo- 
tional setting by the release of adrenin, the adrenal shows a 
very close relationship to the sex glands, especially during 
pregnancy. 


22 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


Pituitary. This small organ (hypophysis cerebrt) at the base 
of the brain has two embryologically distinct structures, sep- 
arated by an inter-glandular cleft. X-ray pictures of the 
pituitary region often reveal bad bone formation which 
results in improper glandular size. This irregular develop- 
ment may in turn dwarf or exaggerate adolescent growth 
and occasionally causes radical mental disorders. Continu- 
ous artificial feeding often produces very marked increases 
in height, cutting down excess fat, improvement in gen- 
eral mental tone, etc. Too excessive activity of the ante- 
rior lobe is productive of the gigantism sometimes seen in 
the preadolescent period, with the fairly typical enlargement 
of the facial bones and extremities in adults (acromegaly); 
too diminished secretion of the posterior lobe produces 
marked obesity and sexual arrest or infantilism. Adoles- 
cent growth and metabolism in general seem stimulated by 
the autacoid of the anterior lobe, fat production and regula- 
tion of the reproductive organs being influenced by that of 
the posterior. 

Pineal. This small brain structure seems to operate in 
childhood to retard growth. At puberty it should normally 
prove degenerating, hence the absence of its inhibitive auta- 
coid making adolescent growth relatively unchecked. Dis- 
turbance of this gland in childhood results in a premature 
development of the reproductive organs, increased skeletal 
growth, and precocity. 

Sexual. The rapid growth phenomena of the sex appara- 
tus is, of course, characteristic of adolescence. In the male 
are found the testes as tubular glands of both external and 
internal secretions; in the female the ovary specialized as 


PHYSICAL GROWTH OF ADOLESCENTS 23 


well for external and internal production. The masculine 
gland functions specifically to produce the reproductive 
spermatozoa; the female the ovum. In addition, each or- 
ganism produces an autacoid which apparently controls the 
development of the so-called secondary sex characteristics 
so prominent with the onset of puberty. Castration or sex- 
ual infantilism results in an inability to respond to normal 
sex stimuli, and in a failure of the secondary sex characters 
to develop. Recent work on glandular transplanting, al- 
though still somewhat in the experimental stage, shows, es- 
pecially with lower animals, the remarkable strengthening of 
sex activity in all regards when healthy glands are trans- 
planted.! Specifically, the cells of Leydig are apparently 
functioning to produce the autacoids basic to the develop- 
ment of sexual characteristics, and to stimulating sex opera- 
tions. Evidence as to reproductive efficacy after glandular 
transplanting is less reliable than that for the reappearance 
of secondary sexual characteristics. 

The rather extended fractional study of adolescent growth 
made in the preceding paragraphs has sufficed both to show 
its character and the factors conditioning it, as well as the 
basis for much of the complexity, variability, and instability 
shown in adolescent behavior, viewed either objectively 
(physically) or subjectively (psychologically). The chapter 
immediately following will be concerned with a total rather 
than a fractional study of adolescent growth. 


1 For a summary, see Stone, C. P., “Experimental Studies of Two Im- 
portant Factors Underlying Masculine Sexual Behavior’’; in Journal of Exe 
perimental Psychology, vol. v1, no. 2. (April, 1923.) 


PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


. Justify the inclusion of facts relating to the anatomical and physiologi- 


cal growth into psychological discussion. 


. List all secondary sex characteristics you can detect among pubescent 


boys and girls. 


. Catalogue fetishes and sex charms observed in a group of high school 


students. 


. Inspect all available children approaching the adolescent age with spe- 


cial reference to gross growth defects related to glandular functioning 
— for example, cases of cretinism, gigantism, etc. — and study such 
cases for mental and physical abnormalities. 


. What evidence can you adduce for the following phenomena com- 


monly assigned to adolescence: increased auditory acuity, new “skin 
consciousness,’’ new interest in odors (perfumery, scented soap, pow- 
der, etc.), new stage (“‘puppy love’’) of love? 


. Does it seem likely true that the ‘‘glands dominate personality’? 


CHAPTER IIT 
ANATOMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL AGE 


Wiru the accumulation of repeated observations of the men- 
tal and physical development of school children during the 
period of growth, this following none too rapidly upon the 
great mass of educational statistics collected during the past 
two decades, it is becoming justified and necessary to speak 
of several ages when a complete evaluation of an individual’s 
or a group’s growth is desired. 

Ages characterizing growth. By chronological age is 
meant age expressed in actual years, months, and days. An- 
atomical and physiological age denote respectively the 
strictly physical (anatomical) growth, and the accompany- 
ing stages of maturing as indicated by such factors as me- 
tabolism, eruption of teeth, functional changes of voice, sex, 
ete. Educational, mental, moral-social, and religious ages de- 
note mental rather than physical development as measured 
respectively by school attainment, the development of gen- 
eral intelligence, ability to effect socially approved group ad- 
justments, and development of religious beliefs and prac- 
tices. Normal growth consists essentially in a balanced 
development along all lines suggested by these so-called 
“ages.” That children of the same chronological age may 
vary greatly in respect to their anatomical-physiological and 
the more psychical features of growth becomes increasingly 
established with the passage of each year, as a long period 
for measurement is essential. Kammerer, Dearborn, Wiss- 


26 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


ler, and others — notably Baldwin and Terman — are fur- 
nishing significant contributions for our immediate interest 
in adolescent growth. 

Measurable factors in anatomical age. Baldwin’s recent 
publications ! show quite in detail the representative facts 
of growth, as determined by annual measurements of four 
hundred children during the 6 to 17 year chronological span. 
Height, weight, sitting height, chest girth, breathing capac- 
ity, and strength of arms and upper back were considered. 
Typical height and weight curves, as well as the percentage 
distribution for each trait from 6 to 18 years, are shown by 
Baldwin (pp. 74, 75, 149, 150) as well as in the accompany - 
ing figure (Figure 1). 

The following deductions can be made from these curves, 
taken in conjunction with the large mass of statistical and 
graphical material collected, in most particulars these en- 
dorsing the earlier findings of Boas, Smedley, and Whipple: 

(1) Boys lose their height and weight superiority at pu- 
berty, the adolescent acceleration of growth coming on the 
average from one and one half to two years earlier for the 
girl than the boy. This loss is regained shortly after the 
boy reaches his period of rapid growth, and is not again lost. 

(2) The other anthropometric measurements show the 
same earlier spurt of growth in the girl, although in general 
absolute superiority in breathing, strength of arm and back 
muscles, etc., are not attained during the 12 to 14 year 
period of masculine handicap. 

(3) The period of adolescent growth for both sexes is pre- 


1 Baldwin, B. T., The Physical Growth of Children from Birth to Maturity. 
(University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare, Bulletin 1, no. 1, 1920.) 


ANATOMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL AGE 27 


180 
70.9 Growth Curves 
in Height 
sm Boys 
170 +-F Girls 
66.9 1-Tall 


a 
3 4 Individual Curves ae are gl 
P VA 3 

a ree 
Ai nea 
IS ae alee 
LA eee 


fa 
a 
oS 


Seas 
See 


Pa 
Nn 


NI 


Ly 


Height in Centimeters and Inches 
—s 
Ss 


baa 
to 
Oo 
es 


rl 

bal | 
Ed 

mY 

|_ 2 





OT ee LEP eee tae ep or MBE TPN eC um raegst 
Age in Years 
Fic. 1. Saowrnc Grown Curves tn Heicut ror Boys aAnp GIRLs 
(From Baldwin’s Mental Growth Curve of Normal and Supericr Children, p. 13) 
viewed by rather normal increases, there being little or no 
evidence for a pre-adolescent spurt. 

(4) Taller boys and taller girls both reach their periods of 
maximum and of diminution of growth earlier than shorter 
boys and girls. 

(5) Retardation before or during the earlier years of the 


28 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


adolescent period tends to be followed by a period of quite 
rapid acceleration during adolescence, and the later the 
growth spurt appears the more rapidly the adolescent 
growth period is hurried through. 

(6) Individuals of both sexes maintain relative superiority 
or inferiority through the period of growth; that is, tall chil- 
dren do not become short as youths, etc. 

(7) Predictability is comparatively simple for final height, 
but not for weight. 

(8) The variability of both sexes for any physical trait at 
any single chronological age is very marked, this tending to 
increase with age up to and including the first few years of 
adolescence. 

(9) Correlation between practically all the physical meas- 
urements is markedly positive, higher for boys than girls, all 
tending to be highest during early adolescence and beginning 
to decrease after fourteen years of age. 

(10) Adolescent males tend to be more variable in physical 
traits than females, but “both sexes lose not only variability, 
but correlations as they grow older” (Pearson). 

Roentgenograms as criteria of anatomical age. Rotch, 
Pryor, Baldwin, Dearborn, Prescott, Lincoln, and others 
have studied anatomical age by X-ray pictures, it having 
been shown that the transformation of cartilaginous into 
osseous tissue proceeds by regular and well-defined stages, 
these appearing most clearly in the carpal bones and the epiph- 
yses of the hand and wrist. Rotch found that anatomical 
development as herein measured proceeds fairly independ- 
ently of chronological age, even of height and weight, and 
that size and chronological age often tell nothing about the 


ANATOMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL AGE 29 


stage of anatomical development reached. He further 
shows that girls are at all ages more advanced than boys 
regarding epiphyseal development, hence contradicting the 
findings for the objectively measured features reported in 
the immediately preceding paragraph, as these showed the 
rather 11 to 14 year handicap under which the male la- 
bors. Typical changes in ossification just before and after 
the beginning of puberty are shown in the accompanying 
photographs. It is extremely likely that X-ray photographs 
of carpal ossification soon will justify important age, sex, and 
racial generalizations regarding anatomical age, and that 
anatomical indices may play some prominent part in decid- 
ing doubtful cases of school promotion, classification, ete. 

Physiological age. Functional or physiological maturity 
offers significant features of study. Crampton’s? excellent 
study, nearly two decades ago (see Chapter I), was directed 
toward the age at which the three stages of pubescence dis- 
tinguished by him appeared in nearly four thousand unse- 
lected boys in the New York City high schools. Crampton 
showed that, with thirteen and three fourths years taken as 
about the beginning of the high school period, the number 
of pre-pubescents, pubescents, and post-pubescents is almost 
exactly equal. 

Baldwin’s findings confirm Crampton’s as to the wide 
variability manifested in physiological maturing. His data 
are based upon nearly five thousand boys, widely selected. 

1 See Terman, L. M., The Hygiene of the School Child, p.'71, for extensive 
bibliography. (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914.) 

2 Crampton, C. W., ‘Physiological Age’’; in American Physical Education 


Review, March to June, 1908. ‘‘Anatomical or Physiological Age versus 
Chronological Age’’; in Pedagogieal Seminary, 1908. 


30 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


(The criterion held was that of pubescent growth and pig- 
mentation of fine hair, which portray the very brief period of 
time, five to seven months, marking the change from asexual 
to sexual life, when power of procreation is established.) ! 
The range for years is indicated as follows, with the pubes- 
cent mode at 133 and 14 years for country and city boys . 
respectively: 


Country Boys City Boys 
Pre-pubescent......... 84-16 94-174 
Pubescenty.aieites vee 943-1535 10 -18 
Post-pubescent........ 113--24 123-24 


In the case of girls reaching physiological maturity, the 
criteria regularly considered are the first menstrual flow, en- 
largement of the breasts, the appearance of subcutaneous fat 
and axillary hair. Baldwin’s results for nearly five hundred 
girls, unselected except that they were all from middle- or 
upper-class homes, showed, as in the case of boys, no fixed 
chronological age for physiological maturation, the norm for 
pubescence being a distribution range and not an average 
chronological age. In fact, both boys and girls are found of 
the same chronological age, between ten and one half and six- 
teen and one half, who differ in physiological age from one to 
five years and still are physically well developed for real age. 
Finally, there is a 10 to 17 year age range of first menstrua- 
tion for normal girls, with thirteen years seven and one half 


1 Pubescence as objectively rated above is proving not a sufficiently ade- 
quate criterion of the primal secretion of the sperm cell. A better technique 
is under construction in several quarters at present. 


ANATOMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL AGE $1 


months being the median maturing age for country- and 
thirteen years nine months for city-bred girls respectively.! 
Finally, early maturing girls are on the average close to the 
height norm for girls, and this early maturing is generally 
followed by a rapid cessation of growth in stature, while late 
maturing brings a delayed decrease in growth increment. 

Factors affecting anatomical and physiological growth at 
adolescence. The keynote of all the previous discussion of 
growth has been variability. Certainly many factors are at 
work to influence the onset of adolescent maturation. The 
first group of these may be thought of as hereditary; for ex- 
ample, Jewish stock matures earlier than the Indo-Euro- 
pean, the Latin than the Teuton; climatic conditions may 
occasionally affect to degree, although the older general 
statement that children in the tropical countries mature 
precociously is discredited; family heredity, or immediate 
ancestry, may play a strong réle, this often relating to ba- 
sic temperamental endowment; of course, sex is a strong 
determinant. 

The second group of factors conditioning adolescent 
growth may be thought of as external or accidental. Among 
these may be mentioned the following: Glandular influences, 
as shown in Chapter I, either to hasten or delay maturity; 
diseases, hardships, privation, mental anxiety, care and ex- 
cess responsibility all tend to have a retarding effect; bad 
economic and social conditions—for example, unsuitable and 
unnutritive diet and insufficient clothing, overwork, lack of 
parental care as regards sleep, exercise, personal habits, etc. 


1 Baldwin, B.T. The Physical Growth of Children from Birth to Maturity. 
(University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare, Bulletin 1, no. 1, 1920.) 


$82 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


— reflect themselves in subnormal height, weight, etc.,! so- 
cial class being almost as potent a determinant of size as is 
race, and the children of the poor reaching the onset of ado- 
lescence one to two years behind the upper classes; city ver- 
sus country rearing, as shown earlier in the present chapter; 
hygiene and exercise; perhaps pampering has occasional 
influence to accelerate, excessive school requirements to 
retard. 

The above paragraph naturally suggests the matter of 
health. During especially the early years of the adolescent 
period, many ailments make an appearance — for example, 
anemia, scoliosis, headache, indigestion, nosebleed, insom- 
nias, eye-strain, nervousness, palpitations of the heart, al- 
though these tend to be generally petty and far from univer- 
sal even among girls. Foreign studies, notably by Hertel, 
Schmid-Monnard, and Khlopine for Danish, German, and 
Russian school children respectively, show a remarkable in- 
crease of morbidity with age in general and adolescence in 
particular, although the rapid increase results probably not 
so much from the general physical shake-up incident to 
adolescence as the increasing strain occasioned by school du- 
ties, long sessions, home study, etc. Johnson’s study for 
American high school pupils showed that those of poorest 
health studied harder, took more private instruction, and 
slept least. All in all, however, resistance to illness and dis- 
ease is very strong. The United States Census Report indi- 
cates the smallest percentage of deaths occurring between 
the ages ten and fourteen; Hartwell’s study of the Boston 
death-rate showed the period of pubertal change the lowest. 

1 Robert’s Manual of Anthropometry, p. 32. (London, 1878.) 


ANATOMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL AGE 33 


In other words, the rapid-growth period of adolescence 
shows wonderful vitality and resistance powers should ill- 
health tend to occur. 

With so many factors at work to produce variations in an- 
atomical and physiological growth, it is reasonable to expect 
that individual differences in psychological, educational, and 
other ages may prove just as striking and significant for edu- 
cational treatment as anatomical and physiological ages. 
Mental growth is discussed in the subsequent chapters, and 
certain pedagogical implications for the various growth phe- 
nomena are there stated. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. Attempt to estimate the several ages (anatomical, physiological, men- 
tal, etc.) of a twelve-year-old girl you are well acquainted with; com- 
pare with a twelve-year-old boy. 

2. Do physical differences between the sexes during early adolescence jus- 
tify different school treatment? Specify. 

3. What progress has been made to date in the problem raised in ques- 
tion 247, 

4, Cite original illustrations for each of the factors listed as affecting ana- 
tomical and physiological growth at adolescence. 

5. A well-known college professor of education was elected to the superin- 
tendency of a city school system. He held toa theory that chronologi- 
cal age should determine grade placement. Grades I—-VIII were re- 
classified accordingly. Predict the results, especially for grades VII- 
VIII. 

6. Is there justification for an adolescent school on the basis of facts 
presented in this chapter? 


CHAPTER III 


PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL ASPECTS OF 
ADOLESCENT GROWTH 

THE preceding chapters have sufficed to show not only the 
various striking physical phenomena of adolescent growth, 
but also that chronological age relates very poorly to anatom- 
ical and physiological age. It has been further shown that 
individuals tend to maintain, throughout their period of 
growth, an initial superiority or inferiority in physical stat- 
ure, weight, etc. Constancy within reasonable limits seems 
the rule for individual physical growth from year to year; 
wide variability of growth attainment the rule for individ- 
uals of the same chronological age. 


1. Mental growth 


The meaning of general intelligence, group and individual 
methods of measurement, the basic nature and character of 
its growth, significant measurable facts of adolescent men- 
tality, etc., are treated at length in Chapter VII, on “ Know- 
ing and the Adolescent.”” ‘The more general trends of psy- 
chological development in relation to anatomical and physio- 
logical growth of adolescence furnish the subject-matter for 
the present discussion. 

Mentality and gross physical traits. The early work of 
Goddard with sub-normals largely started interest upon 
this problem of great general and educational moment. On 


ASPECTS OF ADOLESCENT GROWTH 35 


the basis of anthropometric measures of 10,844 mentally- 
defective cases, of all ages, he came to conclude as follows: 


The above figures seem to warrant the conclusion that we have 
a remarkable correlation between physical growth and mental de- 
velopment. The low grade (idiot) has not only a disturbed brain 
function, but his entire organism is disarranged and growth proc- 
esses upset. In the imbecile the same is true but to a less extent. 
In the moron we have the interesting phenomenon of practically 
normal growth during the immature years, but an arrest of growth 
earlier than in normals. 


Doll, continuing with the same class of subjects, deter- 
mined the following correlations: 


TABLE ITI ! 





Boys GrIRts 
Mental age and stature................ : 39 
Mental age and sitting height........... ; AT 
Mental age and weight................. : 34 


Mental age and right grip.............. : .69 
Mental age and left grip............... : .67 
Mental age and vital capacity.......... ‘ .63 


Correlation determination with children of normal or su- 
perior intelligence has been somewhat tardy, primarily be- 
cause of the quite proper delay incident to securing intensive 
consecutive studies, both mental and physical, through a 
long period of years on the same individuals. However, it 
seemed well substantiated by Porter, Woolley and Fisher, 
and others that a small yet positive correlation maintains be- 
tween mental and physical traits within a normal group of 
children, and that pupils of whatever age above grade tend to 


1 The coefficients in this table were corrected by Doll for irrelevancy of 
chronological age. 


36 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


be taller and heavier than pupils of the same chronological 
age below grade. In like manner Baldwin concludes that 
the physiologically-accelerated group studied completed the 
eighth grade with mean chronological and school attainment 
records of 12 years 93 months, and 84.3 respectively; the 
physiologically retarded group with 13 years 734s months, 
and 81.7 respectively.!_ All studies until the past year or so 
have for the most part dealt with a single or very few meas- 
ures of growth. ‘The present trend is to base all analyses of 
growth upon a combination or battery of tests — anatomical 
(physical), physiological, mental, scholastic, etc. Results 
to date follow, although these are all subject to modification 
with continued refinement of technique, and long-carried- 
out consecutive measurements. 

The mental growth curve. Results from the Iowa Child 
Welfare Research Station, whose interest is that of normal 
and superior children, provide statistics which throw some 
light upon mental growth preceding and during the early 
years of adolescence (typically the junior high school period). 
(See Fig. 2.2) The following conclusions seem warranted. 
Superior and average children develop toward and through 
early adolescence at different levels, becoming increasingly 
dissimilar with increase in chronological age. The prelude 
to adolescence is shown by a slight increase and tendency to 
depart from the straight-line relationship, this being charac- 
teristic for mentally superior children of both sexes and for 
average girls, the average boy continuing till the fourteenth 


1 Baldwin, B. T., Physical Growth and School Progress. (Bulletin 10, 
United States Bureau of Education, 1914.) ; 

2 Baldwin, B. T., Mental Growth Curve of Normal and Superior Children, 
vol, 1, no. 1, p. 11. (University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare, 1922.) 


ASPECTS OF ADOLESCENT GROWTH 37 


220 


——— Superior Children 


~=—-—— Average Children i /| 


Wy, 
2 
“HE STEVEC ial a  e 7 


160 


Mental Age in Months 


100 





4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 LZ 13 14 15 
Chronological Age in Years 


Fic. 2. Menta Growts Curves Basep UPON A COMPARISON OF 
MeEntTAL AGE WITH CHRONOLOGICAL AGE 
(From Baldwin) 
year without any mental spurt. The mental growth curves 
for both superior and average groups show the female supe- 
rior in intelligence during early adolescence, this correspond- 
ing with the superiority shown in anatomical and physiologi- 
cal growth, as set forth in Chapter II. Some evidence exists 


38 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


for concluding that, although the I.Q. curves continue ap- 
proximately horizontal in pre-adolescence and puberty, the 
two superior groups show a small mental spurt as the twelfth 
year approaches, the average girls showing their adolescent 
acceleration a year later. (See Fig. 3 and Table III.) 











160 
Superior and Average Children oe an 
150 Superior -—-—— Boys 
140 Average ~=-~-— Girls 
130 
Ay bay 
i 110 
100 
90 


Age in Years 


Fic. 3. Spowine INTELLIGENCE Quotient CuRVES OF SUPERIOR 
AND AVERAGE CHILDREN 


(From Baldwin) 


Predictability of adolescent intelligence. With the gen- 
eral trend of most measurements published to date, regard- 
ing the constancy of the I.Q., to endorse the 1917 pronounce- 
ment of Terman regarding its approximate constancy, it 
seems fair to conclude as follows: adolescent mentality can 
be quite well predicted by pre-adolescent examinations, 
nearly all children keeping their intellectual status except 
feeble-minded, whose I.Q.’s show a tendency to decrease 
considerably (Terman). Variations between successive ex- 
aminations appear — the girl appearing more variable than 
the boy, superior children more so than average, and the 


ASPECTS OF ADOLESCENT GROWTH 39 


older than the younger. This variability tends to be in the 
positive direction at adolescence, especially for superior 
children. Correlation coefficients in intelligence between su- 
perior and average boys and girls through pre-adolescence, 
for successive examinations, are very high and positive 
(.72 = .05 to .93 £ .02), showing relative individual stability 


TaBue Til. Mean INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENTS OF SUPERIOR AND 
AVERAGE Boys AND GIRLS FOR SUCCESSIVE CHRONOLOGICAL AGES 


Boys GIRLS | 


EN ata Intelligence | Intelligence | Intelligence |Intelligence 
CAL SGE Quotient Quotient Quotient Quctient 
| 110+ 90-110 110+ 90-110 












Superior Average Superior Average 


a ee 8) eee 


CHOP DHEHAOOW 
OVWOHAMOAH 





WAIWINONRAW]S? 


within the group. Finally (from Baldwin), the range of prob- 
able inaccuracy of predicting the adolescent I.Q. from earlier 
examinations is small (4.2 to 7.0 for the prediction range of 
the second, third, fourth, and fifth examination from the 
first). 

Mental, physical, and physiological growth. Murdoch 
and Sullivan have held that the degree of correlation be- 
tween mental and physical measures decreases with increase 


40 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


in mentality, that this correlation is greatest during the pre- 
adolescent period and thereafter decreases, and that any at- 
tempt to estimate the mentality of average or superior chil- 
dren well along in years by means of physical traits would be 
futile! This would seem to suggest that anatomical as well 
as chronological age are to be discredited in so far as they 
suggest anything significant regarding mental growth. 
However, their results are determined from only a few physi- 
cal factors (weight, stature, and head diameter), and earlier 
it has been shown that some measures of anatomical develop- 
ment — for example, carpal ossification — proceed quite 
independently of the ones Murdoch and Sullivan employed. 

A recent study 2 sought to classify children on the basis of 
general physical development and to compare the resulting 
physiologically accelerated and retarded groups with the 
mean mental age. (See Table IV.) The mean mental age 
of physiologically accelerated boys and girls is consistently 
higher year by year than that of physiologically retarded 
children, this becoming increasingly significant for boys at 
puberty. The correlation between mental age and the ana- 
tomical index employed by Baldwin (exposed area of the car- 
pal bones of the right wrist) was .873 = .021 and .869 = .023 
for boys and girls respectively. 

If one accepts grade placement (educational age) as a 
rough measure or equivalent of mental development, it 
seems quite clear that pupils accelerated anatemically and 

1 Murdoch, K., and Sullivan, L. R., ‘‘A Contribution to the Study of Men- 
tal and Physica] Measurements in Normal Children’”’; in American Physical 
Education Review, May and June, 1923. 


* Baldwin, B. T. Mental Growth Curve of Normal and Superior Children, 
vol. 11, no. 1, p. 11. (University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare, 1922.) 


ASPECTS OF ADOLESCENT GROWTH 41 


physiologically are farther along in mental development. 
In other words, anatomical-physiological development cor- 
relates with mental age; and, to refer again to Crampton’s 
study of the scholarship of high school boys, it is clear why, 
of the 14-142-year-old boys in the first term, 42.9 per cent 
are pre-pubescent; 68.2 per cent of the 13-133-year-old boys 
in the same term are pre-pubescent as against 30 per cent of 


Taste ITV. Mean Menta AcE in Montus oF PHYSIOLOGICALLY 
ACCELERATED AND RetTaRpDED Boys AND GIRLS 


Boys GIRLS 
CHRONOLOGICAL 
AGE 


Accelerated | Retarded | Accelerated | Retarded 





the same group who have reached the third term; 50 per cent 
more of the pre-pubescent 13-year-olds failed than post- 
pubescent 13-year-olds, with a corresponding difference for 
14 years of 41 per cent, and for 15 years, 24 per cent. 

In summary, mental growth correlates strikingly with 
physical and physiological growth; superiority in intelligence 
is due in part to greater native capacity and a greater ana- 
tomical and correspondingly physiological development; fem- 
inine mental superiority around the twelfth chronological 


42 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


year relates to the fact that girls are simply farther along in 
the stage of growth; that the slower-growing male perforce 
will be mentally outclassed during the early adolescent years 
until his growth tends to catch up with that of the opposite 
sex. Physiological maturity goes a long way toward reveal- 
ing parallel mental growth in early adolescence. 


2. Stages of growth 


The several stages. A few quotations from those who have 
written on the subject will make clear the different stages of 
growth. We will quote from three: 


The course of human life may be figured roughly as a trajectory 
of which the rising portion corresponds roughly to the period of 
growth, the relatively level portion to middle age, and the fall to 
senile decay (Slaughter). 

Thus, if an ordinary life lasts seventy-two years, we may divide 
that life into six equal parts, calling the first childhood, the second 
adolescence, the third and fourth maturity, and the fifth and sixth 
senescence. ... The period of youth may also be subdivided, and 
usually is, into two, or, by some writers, into three parts. In the 
latter case the divisions are known as early, middle, and later 
adolescence. ... It does seem clear that the first four or five years 
of the teens show characteristics sufficiently well marked to dis- 
tinguish these years somewhat from those that follow, and so to 
justify a twofold division —-with the dividing line somewhere 
about the sixteenth or sevententh year (Tracy). 

As far as the educative process is concerned, however, the child 
is an entirely different being at different levels of his growth. Each 
period of development is marked by peculiar physical, mental, and 
moral characteristics that demand specific treatment. ... Neither 
mental nor physical development follows the law of uniformly ac- 
celerated motion. On the contrary, both are rhythmical, periods 
of growth being followed by longer or shorter periods of compara- 
tive quiescence, and these in turn by shorter or longer periods of 
growth. So different are the characteristics of both mind and body 


ASPECTS OF ADOLESCENT GROWTH 48 


at successive crests of these developmental waves that some writers 
have termed the great changes in the child’s life ‘‘ metamorphoses,”’ 
indicating an analogy with the changes exhibited in the development 
of many lower forms of life and most spectacularly, perhaps, in the 
development of the typical insect through larval and pupal stages 
to complete maturity. In so far as the work of the school is con- 
cerned, this analogy is hardly overdrawn. The school life of the child 
presents three distinct phases: (1) the transition stage, from the age 
of six to the age of eight; (2) the formative stage, from eight to 
twelve; and (3) the adolescent stage, from twelve to eighteen 
(Bagley).} - 

Further quotations from Hall, Siegert, King, et al., supple- 
mented by such elaborate descriptions of the detailed char- 
acteristics of each of the several stages of growth, such as 
Bagley describes, necessarily lead the student to develop a 
view of human growth as quite disjointed and dissectable. 
The data, presented in this and the preceding chapter re- 
garding anatomical, physiological, and mental growth, can 
but impress one with the continuity aspect of development, 
and that, in dividing growth into stages, the justification 
is likely to be more methodological than fundamental and 
essential. Specifically, even in the face of citations made re- 
garding anatomical, physiological, and psychological spurt- 
ings at the dawn of puberty, let it be emphasized, and 
later it will be reiterated, that the powers and capacities 
were present all the time, slowly gathering strength for final 
expression and maturity; that differences between adoles- 
cence and childhood are more in degree than in kind, and 
that they are underlaid by common fundamentals; that the 

1 Bagley. W. C., The Educative Process. See pp. 185-202, for a thorough 
discussion of the physical, mental, and moral characteristics of the three dis- 


tinct phases of school life. (The Macmillan Company, 1915.) Reprinted 
by permission. 


44 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


reader will finally know little of adolescence except as he 
knows much of pre-adolescence on the one hand and the 
world of adult life on the other, for which adolescence proves, 
not a separate step, but a stage in the continuous life of 
growth. 


3. Growth and pedagogical application to the 
gunior high school 


Pedagogical applications to an extensive degree can be 
made regarding the growth phenomena of adolescence, and 
along the line of each of its aspects — anatomical, physio- 
logical, mental, educational, social-religious, and moral. Cer- 
tain applications are suggested for the last four in subse- 
quent chapters. Several fundamental applications for the 
first two (anatomical and physiological age) may well be 
stated here. 

Physical training. Instead of physical training being 
conducted uniformly, with groups organized primarily upon 
the same chronological age or equal educational attainment, 
attention should no doubt be paid to physiological age. 
Girls, with their earlier physiological maturing, certainly 
need types of exercises and games not appropriate for boys of 
the same age. Remembering, too, the variability of physio- 
logical maturity within either sex, it is fair to expect that any 
child approaching or within the adolescent period will be 
found taking physical training with a group of the same phys- 
iological age, all the members of which presumably being 
interested in the same sort of games, exercises, and other 
physical projects. 

School advancement. All recent investigations seem to 


ASPECTS OF ADOLESCENT GROWTH 45 


point to the fact that the larger and more physiologically 
mature child is doing better educationally, hence physiolog- 
ical development should be considered regularly in grade 
placement, and especially in cases of question — for exam- 
ple, failure or double promotion. Cases are often found 
wherein an adolescent may show poor ability in some certain 
line of school achievement, but be so advanced physiologi- 
cally, and generally in some certain lines of school attain- 
ment, that it would prove highly unwise to retain him to 
work with a group quite younger physiologically. This sug- 
gests one factor of the problem of junior high school guid- 
ance. | 

Industrial and part-time work. The laws governing child 
labor are of course impartial, hence based upon chronological 
age. Perhaps it is not too much to expect new legislation, as 
well as the same sort of emphasis in handling the manual and 
industrial activities of the school itself, wherein recognition 
may be given to the fact that some children of adolescent age 
chronologically and at age educationally may be several 
years over-age or under-age in physiological development. 

Mental development. It has been shown that physiologi- 
cal and mental age correlate strikingly, hence the physiologi- 
cally more mature child undoubtedly should have recogni- 
tion paid to the fact that he has different interests, attitudes, 
emotions, problems, etec., than his comrades of equal chrono- 
logical age. It often proves the case, moreover, that the 
physiologically mature youth may rate no higher on a gen- 
eral intelligence test than a precocious boy of younger age, 
yet the two may differ markedly along the lines mentioned in 
the preceding sentence. Here is suggested one of the prob- 


46 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


lems raised when a very precocious boy is allowed to skip sev- 
eral grades, so that finally he may be with a mentally homo- 
geneous group, but finds himself quite ill-adjusted to the an- 
atomical and physiological maturity of the advanced group. 
The junior high school, organized primarily with reference 
to the varying needs of the early adolescent, can be expected 
to give attention to all facts of adolescent growth — physical, 
mental, social, moral. It can also be expected to furnish 
each pupil an equal opportunity to employ the energies, 
both physical and mental, he possesses in worth-while en- 
deavor. ‘This the adolescent school seeks to do, thereby 
guaranteeing to each pupil a square deal educationally. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. Debate the following: Mental, educational, and physiological age cor- 
relate positively and highly with chronological age. 

2. Why is prediction for adolescent growth significant? 

3. Cite instances in your own life, and the lives of others, for the ‘‘met- 
amorphoses”’ discussed in this chapter. ‘ 

4. Do child labor laws reflect the scientific facts of child growth? 

5. Contrast and evaluate the individual methods of studying child growth 
(Baldwin) with the group methods (Crampton). 

6. For what unusual cases of adolescent pupils are Roentgenograms likely 
to prove most serviceable? 


SELECTED REFERENCES FOR PART I 


Baldwin, B. T. Mental Growth Curve of Normal and Supertor Children. 
(1922.) 

Baldwin, B. T. The Physical Growth of Children from Birth to Maturity. 
(1920.) 

Cannon, W.B. Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage. (1915.) 

Crampton, C. W. ‘‘Anatomical and Physiological Age versus Chrono- 
logical Age’’; in Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1908. 

Harrow, Benjamin. Glands in Health and Disease. (1922.) 

Hines, H. C. Measuring Intelligence. (1923.) 

Pringle, R. W. Adolescence and High School Problems. (1922.) 

Mario, A. La Puberta. (1897.) 


ASPECTS OF ADOLESCENT GROWTH 47 


Schmid-Monnard, Karl. Dzie chronische Kranklichkeit in unserem mitt 
leren u. hdheren Schulen. Zt. £.Schulnes. (1897.) 

Terman, L. M. The Hygiene of the School Child, chaps. v, v1, and xx. 
(1914.) 

Terman, L. M. The Intelligence of School Children, chaps. v1 and 1x. 
(1919.) 

Watson, J. B. Psychology from the Stand point of a Behaviorist, chap. v. 

(1919.) 

Whipple, G. M., in Monroe’s Principles of Secondary Education, 

chap. v1. (1916.) 


PART II 
THE ADOLESCENT IN REACTION 


CHAPTER IV 
THE STIMULUS-RESPONSE HYPOTHESIS 


THE adolescent, together with all other humans and lower 
animals, is a stimulus-response mechanism. ‘This statement 
is basic to the study of adolescent psychology, as it is to all 
studies of behavior — human, animal, and even plant. 

The person versus the thing. It is perhaps trite to point 
out that psychology seeks to deal with persons, not things. 
In writing these lines, a pencil — that is, a mere thing — is 
employed. It has no active part in the process of writing, is 
presumably totally devoid of any knowledge of what is be- 
ing thought by the writer, and has no emotion or attitude 
aroused by the push-and-pull situation in which it is playing 
so blind and passive a rdle. But the writer is actively en- 
gaged in responding to many stimuli, many causes at work 
to produce his reaction. Some of these are the deeply rooted 
factors of inheritance; some the direct results of his own 
learned experience; finally, the many physical factors of 
light, sound, temperature, pressure, etc., all strictly objec- 
tive to his physical self. 

The simple illustration just made suffices to show that the 
most fundamental attribute of a person is to respond, to re- 
act, to behave, with reference to either simple or complex 
stimuli, and that this attribute is the basic manifestation of 


STIMULUS-RESPONSE HYPOTHESIS 49 


organic life. From the simplest to the very highest and 
most complex living forms this fact of adjustment to the 
stimuli of environment, both individual and social, as well as 
physical and psychical, characterizes the entire life career of 
the particular biological organism being studied. 

The possibilities of adolescent reaction. ‘The adolescent 
possesses a vast wealth of reacting or responding machinery, 
by means of which he can adjust to the stimuli or situations 
presenting themselves. In the first place, he has retained 
throughout the years of childhood and boyhood the inborn 
mechanisms of response. Also, twelve years or so have been 
at work not only to get him to attend to situations which he 
might not by native inclination have been led to respond to, 
but also literally to provide him with acquired mechanisms 
of adjustment. 

The nature of the stimulus. The stimulus or situation 
rarely proves simple and unitary. Of course it is possible to 
bring such simple factors to bear upon a person as a single 
tone, light rays of equal length, or even a single word to spell 
or a fundamental number combination to add. On the 
other hand, the actual life situations are exceedingly com- 
plex and represent a collection of many stimuli, as the reader 
can easily verify by pausing and analyzing the factors mak- 
ing up the total reading situation in which he is now placed. 

The nature of the response. ‘The responses may vary 
from those of occasional simplicity to very great complexity. 
Among the possibilities of reaction occur at least the four 
following main types: 


1. Explicit learned (habit) responses, such as reading the printed 
page, factoring an algebraic expression, combing the hair in the 


60 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


latest mode, and observing one’s table manners or classroom 
etiquette. 

2. Implicit habit responses, wherein is meant all the subjective 
experience or mental activity involved in responding to the situa- 
tion, such as speech reactions to a question, thinking with reference 
to a problem presented in class, or any of the mental processes of 
sensation, memory, imagination, emotion, etc., these apparently 
revealing that mental activity is just as properly the response to 
definite stimuli as all other forms of which the organism is capable. 

3. Explicit hereditary responses, these to include such instinc- 
tive reactions as seen in adolescent fear, anger, sex attraction, 
athletic rivalry. 

4. Implicit hereditary responses, by which reference is made 
primarily to the autonomic activities of certain body muscles and 
glands considered so fundamental in explaining the occurrences of 
adolescent emotions.! 


From the above it is easy to see that the teacher of the 
adolescent pupil asks the psychologist several pertinent 
questions: 

(1) What are the typical reactions — unlearned or learned 
— of which the adolescent is capable? 

» (2)What stimuli or situations are adequate to incite these? 

(3) How may reactions which have been proved desirable 
be strengthened, and the undesirable ones modified or elim- 
inated? 

(4) What special organizations may the junior high school 


1 Tt is seen, of course, that the writer strives mainly to view the responses 
as open to objective observation. He frankly fails with reference to “2” 
above, and departs herein from Watson, John B., Psychology from the Stand- 
point of a Behaviorist, p. 14. (Quoted by courtesy of Messrs. J. B. Lippin- 
cott Company, Philadelphia, 1919.) In doing this he is, of course, per- 
suaded that behavior subjectively viewed is properly a part of the subject- 
matter of psychology, and that the strictly mental aspects of reactions rate 
side by side with the muscular and glandular in any complete description 
of the response side of the stimulus-response operation. 


STIMULUS-RESPONSE HYPOTHESIS 51 


definitely seek to provide in order that situations may be 
afforded to incite reactions of genuine educational worth? 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. Distinguish between stimulus and situation, and analyze typi in- 
stances of each. 

2. In what respects does a person (for example, an adolescent youth) dif- 
fer from a thing (for example, a tree, a watch)? 

3. Furnish illustrations from a single situation of the four types of reac- 
tions listed in the foregoing chapter, such as a question asked you by 
your class instructor. 

4. Are reactions always conscious? 

5. Attempt to discover an example of a stimulus causing a reaction not 
issuing into actual muscular response. 

6. Are all actions caused by a stimulus, either internal or external? 


CHAPTER V 


THE INSTINCTIVE OR UNLEARNED ELEMENT 
IN RESPONSE 

Tue unlearned or hereditary forms of response are probably 
no more or less for the adolescent than for the boyhood. 
which preceded or manhood to follow. These unlearned 
modes, too, play little more or little less prominent réles in 
adolescence than at other periods of life, with the possible ex- 
ception of the first few days of babyhood. No act of behav- 
ior is ever to be understood except as a resultant of two 
forces — the pull of the hereditary form of response, and the 
learned acquirements of individual experience. Neither of 
these forces is ever absent in adolescent behavior. 

Types of unlearned tendencies to behavior. Psychology 
joins with biology in attempting to catalogue the unlearned 
ways, possessed by the human organism, of responding to 
the demands set upon him. In this connection are always 
mentioned the automatic acts of breathing, digestion, excre- 
tion, etc.; the reflexes of both the physiological and sensa- 
tional type; and finally, the instinctive. The reflexes and in- 
stincts always monopolize discussion, and it is customary to 
point out that both are responses to adequate stimuli of the 
environment; that they operate in service to the organism, 
and that they represent the operation of definite, predeter- 
mined pathways of the nervous system. To this trilogy (au- 
tomatic, reflex, instinct) it is becoming fashionable to add 
the capacities, to which reference will be made later in the 


text (Chapter VII). 


INSTINCTIVE AND UNLEARNED ELEMENT _ 53 


The neural aspect of unlearned behavior. No more fas- 
cinating discussion presents itself to the student of psychol- 
ogy than that of the physiological-anatomical aspects of all 
activity, learned no less than unlearned. It is assumed, 
however, that the reader is already familiar with the general 
facts describing nervous structures and their organization 
and operation, the neurone doctrine, and the integrative 
workings of the nervous system. ‘Three quasi-neural facts, 
however, are so basic to the present discussion that they 
properly may be mentioned. 


(a) The reflex arc is the unit of activity. The reflex represents 
in neural terms a simple arrangement of neurones, starting in a 
sense organ and ending in the muscular-response machinery. 
Hereby are provided the immediate, mechanical, and simple re- 
actions to stimuli. Side by side with these simple arrangements 
occur the countless thousands of unorganized neural structures, 
these providing the almost unlimited amount of random, spon- 
taneous activity, seen at its maximum with the babe but always 
present or securable in the adult. 

(b) Complex groupings of simpler reflexes into proper operating 
order produce the complex hereditary modes of responding com- 
monly called the emotional and instinctive. This grouping of 
many neuronic structures so that, in the presence of a certain 
stimulus, a very complex and widely diffused bodily (and at times 
mental) reaction results, is to be understood in terms of unlearned 
inherited pathways through the nervous system, including both 
the cerebro-spinal and the autonomic. 

(c) The habits or acquired modes of response represent the at- 
tainment or connecting of neural pathways through the learner’s 
own experience. The unorganized spontaneous reflexes previously 
mentioned represent the neural stuff out of which habits are to be 
formed, and the history of organizing these, into such perfect serial 
order as finally to rival the unlearned connections, becomes the 
fascinating psychology and neurology of learning discussed later 
in this chapter. 


54 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


The definite way in which the unlearned modes of human 
behavior are assigned a neural basis, together with the fact — 
that no neural structures are acquired by growth after birth, 
but are rather merely modifications in the connections of 
these, should place the reader quite on his guard when he is 
sometimes asked to think of certain instincts as being salta- 
tory (to leap or rush forth), and as springing forth almost 
overnight and endowing the adolescent with a previously 
undreamed-of, yet unlearned, way of response. Perhaps it is 
wise to anticipate the outcome of this chapter and to state 
that, the psychology of adolescence is not to be understood 
mainly, or perhaps even primarily, in terms of certain newly 
discovered instinctive urges, but rather in the accumulated 
modifications of the now fairly antique instinctive-emotional 
trends, as connoted by the term habit. 

Dismissing the fairly easy task of classifying the many 
simple reflexes of which the adolescent is capable (for ex- 
ample, winking, sneezing, coughing, etc.), and postponing the 
far more difficult discussion of the emotions,! the reader 
comes at once to a presentation of the complex forms of un- 
learned behavior commonly called “‘instinctive.”’ 

The problem of classification. It becomes very difficult to 
present any accurate classification of instinctive responses, 
even though many psychologists produce lists having se 
many logical values that the reader innocently comes to con- 
clude that they likewise possess psychological accuracy. 


1 It seems of practical value to discuss emotion in parallel with the intel- 
lectual and action aspects of the conscious life, rather than to continue here 
with a discussion of its unlearned and strictly bodily setting. The treat- 
ment given instinct is sufficient to illustrate the general treatment later to 
be afforded emotion. 


INSTINCTIVE AND UNLEARNED ELEMENT — 55 


The causes of this difficulty in classification are not far to 
seek. First, it has already been pointed out that the un- 
learned responses suffer modification almost from the date of 
their first appearance. The learning or habit factor oper- 
ates to modify not only the response itself, but also alters the 
situation for which the response was originally and natively 
prepared. It becomes impossible, therefore, to take any 
single act of adolescent behavior — for example, the ardent 
lover wrestling with the problem of escorting his first love to 
a class party, or the entire high school student body staging 
a red-paint raid upon the school plant of the rival city high 
school on the eve cf the annual football game — and so to 
dissect it into its two basic components as finally to warrant 
a statement that “these elements in the activity are instinc- 
tive (unlearned), while those are habitual (learned).” 

By way of corollary to the above, the nature of the stimuli 
and situations evoking all responses made after infancy are 
so varied and complex, likewise the responses themselves, 
that ultra-simplicity of analysis is no less psychologically 
possible than it is logically necessary or advisable for practi- 
cal purposes. 

Another factor of difficulty is that instincts seem often to 
crosscut each other and take the same avenues of expression. 
For example, the so-called play instinct may employ the 
same musculature, and have the same general objective ap- 
pearance in a gymnasium féte as when employed in settling a 
real quarrel with a single opponent. In either case it has been 
claimed that the exact mode of expression may be dictated by 
the so-called imitative instinct, whereby the individual has 
“come to learn” certain best ways of meeting his antagonist. 


56 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


No biologist or neurologist has succeeded, or is likely to 
succeed, in so charting the complex preferred pathways 
through the nervous system upon which instinctive re- 
sponses presumably depend that he can, with any accuracy, 
assign the exact neural basis for the behavior-phenomena 
psychologists love to describe; for example, fear, anger, col- 
lection, curiosity, imitation, sociability, rivalry, love, ete. 
Even were these reducible to topographical charting at or 
soon after birth, the neural modifications set up through sub- 
sequent experience would no doubt completely alter the 
original neural patterns. 

The above-mentioned difficulties should not deter one 
from attempting to classify the facts of instinct. What they 
should do is to place the reader on his guard, in two ways. 
First, to distinguish between the practical values of a classi- 
fication and its ultimate and final scientific form. Second, 
to avoid being led to think of his fellows as possessing a fixed 
acting group of potential responses, and that all he, as parent, 
the teacher, or associate, has to do to control behavior is to 
know the exact time to apply the magic stimulus of the pass- 
word, as a result of which a definite instinctive mechanism 
is to hurry and respond along predictable lines 

Types of classification. Practically all textbooks on psy- 
chology give a descriptive classification of instincts. These 
vary all the way from the attempts to describe rather loosely 
the generally recognized instincts in man, to describe the re- 
action and then define the stimulus or situation to which the 
reaction is made, or to make a genetic method of approach 
and base a classification upon objectively gathered analysis 
of both the stimulus and the response. 


INSTINCTIVE AND UNLEARNED ELEMENT _ 57 


Angell’s classification is suggestive as a rather loosely de- 
scriptive, yet valuable, attempt at cataloguing: Fear, anger, 
shyness, curiosity, affection, sexual love, jealousy and envy, 
rivalry, sociability, sympathy, modesty (?), play, imitation, 
constructiveness, secretiveness, and acquisitiveness. Mc- 
Dougall would carry description still further and present a 
list of simple instinctive impulses and the parallel primary 
emotions. This parallel classification is already classic, and, 
in spite of the attacks made against it by the opponents of 
purposive psychology, it has probably done more to stimu- 
late thought regarding the nature of instinctive-emotional 
behavior in general, and for the adolescent in particular, 
than any other classification yet proposed. It appears to 
McDougall, therefore, that we are to understand the complex 
activities of adolescence as the operations of the following, 
either in their somewhat native elemental or compounded 
state, or colored by habits, which “are formed only in. the 
service of the instincts”: } 


SIMPLE INSTINCT Prmary EMOTION 
Flight Fear 
Repulsion Disgust 
Curiosity Wonder 
Pugnacity Anger 
Self-abasement (subjection) Subjection (negative self-feeling) 
Self-assertion (self-display) Elation (positive self-feeling) 
Parental Tender 


Thorndike, in most noteworthy fashion, has described the 
reactions and then assigned the stimulus or situation calling 
forth the reaction, hence giving the following list: 


*McDougall, W., Social Psychology, p. 43. (John W. Luce and Com- 
pany, Boston, 1912.) 


58 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


I. Food-getting and protective responses — eating; reaching, 
grasping, and putting objects into the mouth; acquisition and 
possession; hunting; collecting and hoarding; avoidance and re- 
pulsion; rivalry and codperation; habitation; response to confine- 
ment; migration and domesticity; fear; fighting; anger. 

II. Responses to behavior of other human beings — motherly 
behavior; gregariousness; responses of attention to other human 
beings; attention getting; responses to approving and to scornful 
behavior; responses by approving and scornful behavior; mastering 
and submissive behavior; display; shyness; self-conscious behavior; 
sex behavior; secretiveness; rivalry; codperation; suggestibility 
and opposition; envious and jealous behavior; greed; ownership; 
kindliness; teasing, tormenting, and bullying; imitation. 

Iii. Minor bodily movements and cerebral connections — 
vocalizations; visual exploration; manipulation; cleanliness; cu- 
riosity; multiform mental activities; multiform physical activ- 
ities; play. 


Gates ' has continued the Thorndike tradition and has re- 
cently presented a very workable classification of instincts, 
grouped according to the types of stimuli which arouse them 
as follows: 

(1) Instinctive responses to bodily or organic conditions. 

(2) Instinctive responses to objects and events in the envi- 

ronment. 

8) Instinctive responses to the presence or activities of other 

human beings. 

The réle of instincts in man. It has taken the genetic 
method of approach to put the student on guard against ac- 
cepting any of the above classifications as possessing scien- 
tific finality. Watson has performed a genuine scientific serv- 
ice in making a start at studying certain types of instincts 
under the reasonably controlled conditions of the psychologi- 


1 Gates, A., Psychology for Students of Education, p. 134. (The Macmil- 
lan Companys 1923.) gf 


INSTINCTIVE AND UNLEARNED ELEMENT 59 


cal laboratory. After confronting infants with a large range 
of situations alleged to elicit such responses as fear, anger, 
love, acquisition and possession, hunting, collecting and 
hoarding, etc., he comes to conclude that most of the as- 
serted instincts, especially for post-infantile periods, are 
really consolidations of instinct and habit, with overwhelm- 
ing emphasis upon the latter. Indeed, Watson’s viewpoint 
gives so suggestive a slant upon the problems of adolescence 
later to be considered, and furnishes such a wholesome orien- 
tation in studying the typical educational problems of adoles- 
cence, that the following liberal quotation ! is considered ad- 
visable as setting forth the réle of instincts in man: 


1. Man is supplied with a large number of directly adaptive 
life-conserving activities which care for the intake, digestion, and 
dissemination of food products and for the elimination of waste 
and for procreation. These purely vegetative functions serve him 
as they serve animals lower than man and are possibly just 
as “perfect.” 

2. Man at birth and at varying periods thereafter is supplied 
with a series of protective attack-and-defense mechanisms, which 
while not nearly so perfect as in animals, nevertheless form a sub- 
stantial repertoire of acts which needs only slight supplementation 
by habit before being of direct utility to the individual in his 
struggle for food, against enemies, etc. These are the protective 
and defense attitudes — the instinctive factors predominate. 

3. Then follow the occupational tendencies (manipulation) 
supplemented by habit — seen earliest in collecting, hoarding, 
building of blocks, hammering and the use of tools generally, 
drawing, modeling in clay, ete. In the crude stage of these activ- 
ities, the instinctive factors predominate and make clear the lines 
along which habits must follow. The instinctive factors are, 
however, soon lost sight of in the activities of the skilled workman, 
the artist, and the collector. These differing activities are seen at 





: Watson, J. B., Psychology From the Standpoint of a Behaniorist, pp. 266- 
68. (J. B. Lippincott Company, 1919.) Quoted by permission. 


60 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


a very early age in children. Modern school methods, and es- 
pecially the college, tend to break them down. One rarely finds a 
lad of twelve who cannot tell exactly what he wants to become, 
what he is fitted for, and why he is fitted for it. By the time he has 
had all the manipulative tendencies cultivated out of him in 
college, he can rarely tell what he is fitted for, and he drifts now into 
this work, now into that, depending upon his father’s business, 
temporary openings, the traditions of the school, or the aspirations 
of his parents or other backers. We cannot help but feel that there 
are enough instinctive leavings present in early youth to properly 
shape any child’s future activities. The problem is to find the 
method of discovering them, and then to shape the schools and 
colleges in such a way that these tendencies will be fostered rather 
than lost. If they are kept central, any amount of culture may be 
built alongside of them without bringing about their submergence. 

4. Individuality seems in some way to depend upon man’s 
original tendencies, not upon the presence of the completed pattern 
type of instincts, since these do not exist in any large number, but 
apparently upon factors which, when taken singly, are difficult to 
detect, but which when taken together are most important. There 
is not much experimental evidence for this conclusion, but there is 
a great deal of common-sense data. We have in mind such differ- 
entiations as follows: Two men with the same and equal training, 
and approximately equal in ability in any skilled field, each capable 
of turning out fine work, will show individuality in workmanship, 
design, and methods of approaching their problems. ‘Two equally 
skilled pitchers or catchers in baseball show this very well. Two 
men working upon lathes or modeling in clay, or making drawings 
of the same microscopic slide illustrate it. Apparently there are 
different fundamental part activities which have persisted in spite 
of instruction. We dignify these in the artist by the terms “‘ touch,” 
‘technic,’ “‘individuality,” etc. The fact that they have per- 
sisted seems to prove their original nature. 

5. The principal réle of all instinctive activity, neglecting the 
vegetative and procreative (the latter especially is not lacking in 
habit supplementation), is to initiate the process of learning. If an 
object did not call out either a positive or a negative response, the 
formation of a habit with respect to that object would be impossible, 
unless we could take measures to condition a response. 


INSTINCTIVE AND UNLEARNED ELEMENT 61 


After reading the foregoing pages devoted to the at- 
tempted classification of adolescent behavior, the reader 
should come out with a fundamental viewpoint which per- 
mits of three divisions: 

First, practically all adolescent acts are the consolidation 
of instinct and habit, with the latter generally predominat- 
ing. 

Second, it makes little practical difference into what fac- 
tors acts of adolescent behavior are analyzed, as these func- 
tion as wholes in each one’s daily life. 

Third, any one of the above classifications has its values, 
and admits at least roughly the materials of any other, the 
seeming differences being, like so many other differences in 
life, those resultant from differing methods of approach in- 
stead of complete incompatibility. 

The trilogy of adolescent behavior. It becomes immedi- 
ately practical to say that adolescent, and all other behavior, 
may be classified as individual, racial, and social. The first 
includes all natural and acquired ways of reacting that make 
for the welfare of the individual; the second for the race or 
species; the third for the life of the group or society. 

(1) As an individual, the urge to look out for the safety 
and well-being of one’s self is strong. The early factors 
upon which self-preservation depend (feeding, fearing, flee- 
ing, fighting, etc.) continue to enter into behavior, but of 
course these have long since taken on such a coloring by 
reason of the individual’s experiences that they scarcely re- 
semble their original form. ‘The teen-age youth, of course, 
continues to manifest the individual traits of talent, tem- 
perament, and attitude he has long since displayed, and to 


62 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


continue to look out for his own interests, to express himself, 
to “be a cause,” to gratify his curiosity, to “show-off,” even — 
to seek new avenues of self-expression and to provide means 
of rendering himself effective with his fellows. The indi- 
vidualism of adolescence is not to be understood, however, 
as something new in the adolescent’s experience; rather, it 
is the enlargement of earlier individualistic tendencies in 
the light of their modification and unfoldment in broader 
situations. 

(2) As a member of the race, the parental or sex urge is 
strong. Most writers on adolescence emphasize that many 
if not most of the mental processes of adolescence center in 
sex and its function. Hall and his disciples especially urge 
not only the saltatory character of the sex instinct, but em- 
phasize such phenomena as an instinctive drawing apart of 
the two sexes just before puberty, this bringing a loss of in- 
terest in each other and being ascribable in the main to the 
fact that the advent of puberty is earlier in the female by a 
year ortwo. Whipple! would point out the strength of not 
only the primary sex characters (sex love, and impulses to- 
ward sexual activity) but also the secondary sex characters 
that are indirectly associated with the emergence of the sex 
consciousness; for example, interest in adornment, “showing 
off,” and the many other “long-circuitings” or “irradia- 
tions” of the Hallian terminology. Coe? and a host of oth- 
ers would assert that the sexual capacity, in general, is to be 
considered as the physiological basis of all the higher and 


1 Whipple, G. M., in Monroe’s Principles of Secondary Education, pp. 
258-59. (The Macmillan Company, 1916.) 
2 ** Adolescence,’ in Hasting’s Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. 


INSTINCTIVE AND UNLEARNED ELEMENT _ 63 


finer qualities of adolescent and subsequent personality, 
whether ethical or spiritual, offering as proof of his position 
the statement that persons who are made eunuchs in child- 
hood are very largely insensible to social and religious mo- 
tives of any kind, and that defective physiological condi- 
tions, or the misuse of physiological powers, produce morbid 
moral and religious states. In fact, some moralists have so 
magnified the difficulty that clusters around the sex motive 
as to consider it primarily sordid and debasing to character. 

Sigmund Freud has painted the life of sex in lurid terms, 
and makes adolescence the primal stage of life for the sex- 
urge to come in conflict with the moral and social factors 
being inculeated through education. As aresult of this con- 
flict the sex impulses are thrust out of consciousness (‘‘sup- 
pressed’”’), later to return in the dream life, reverie, fantasy, 
inspiration, conversion, or in the hundreds of other “subli- 
mations” of the sex impulse. ‘This is not the place to show 
the extravagances of Freudian psychology, most of which 
have to do with overlooking ! the réle of other instinctive 
urges in the zeal to emphasize the sexual, to overstress the 
psychological fact or possibility of repression, and to make a 
sensual interpretation of the normal life. On the other 
hand, Freud, Watson, Cannon, Moll, and others rating as bi- 
ological psychologists, far more than the psychologists of a 
decade or so ago, have shown conclusively not only that sex 
experiences and operations are prominent during adolescence 
but that their genesis and development, especially for most 
aberrant forms manifested in adolescence, go far back to the 
days of boyhood, childhood, and infancy. The prominence 

1 See Part IV, on “‘ Adolescent Personality.” 


64 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


of these aberrant forms perhaps invites a word of comment, ~ 
for there is little room to question that “the curves of crim- 
inality in general, and of sexual criminality in particular, rise 
sharply during the period of youth; that a majority of pros- 
titutes enter upon their vicious careers between the ages of 
fifteen and eighteen, and that abuses of the sexual functions 
are widespread among both boys and girls at this age.” ! 

The following represent the safe statements to make re- 
garding the sex life of adolescence: (a) it is very strong, and 
operative both directly and indirectly; (0) it is not saltatory, 
and, in its most aberrant forms, is antedated in pre-adoles- 
~ cence; (c) while playing a prominent réle, it is far from being 
the only instinctive determinant for adolescent conduct; and 
(d) its development is generally natural and normal, and it is 
an exaggeration to think of the adolescent as potentially to 
be shipwrecked unless he is provided an environment “ puri- 
fied” far beyond that to be found in the typical American 
home, school, and community. 

(3) As a member of a social unit, or group, the adolescent 
finds the social urge strong. As a matter of fact, adolescence 
seems to be a time for the many group or social instincts, 
long since operative, to approach their maximum strength to 
dictate behavior. Gregariousness, sympathy, approbation, 
and altruism are found playing greater réles as the ado- 
lescent’s body becomes more prepared for the general racial 
functions of sex, and as he finds himself naturally placed in a 
more mature and complex society than to which as a boy he 


1 Tracy, F., The Psychology of Adolescence, p. 147, after Caldo, after 
Hall, in Adolescence, vol. 1, chap. v1. (The Macmillan Company, 1920.) 
Quoted with permission. 


INSTINCTIVE AND UNLEARNED ELEMENT — 65 


has become accustomed. In fact, there gradually matures 
the hetero-centric attitude which, at times in very sharp con- 
flict with the ego-centric, brings the consciousness of self into 
direct reference and relation to others. 

No less than for the sex urge, the social impulses are of pro- 
found significance for adolescent behavior. From their suc- 
cessful employment within, and proper adjustment to the so- 
cial schema wherein the youth moves, result the “‘last and 
perhaps most significant advances in mental development.” 
To develop a proper attitude of sympathy for one’s fellows, 
and a willingness to forego individual good for the larger 
good of one’s group; to participate with, rather than to work 
against, the group activities; to find that individual efficiency 
supplements social efficiency; finally, so to adapt to “the 
whole group of non-material resources of the race, intellec- 
tual, moral, artistic, and religious,” that one becomes both a 
contributor and sharer in the active life of groups naturally 
his own — these suggest the range and significance of the so- 
cial life natural for the adolescent. Their realization con- 
notes social efficiency; failure in realization results in ineffi- 
ciency, social incompatibility, and unhappiness. 

Adolescent behavior and the junior high school. Around 
this trilogy of adolescent behavior — individualism, sexual- 
ism, socialism — accrue the mass of educational problems 
and practices of the educational institution for the adoles- 
cent, namely — the junior high school. The psychology of 
junior high school instruction depends quite largely upon 
the individualism of the pupils, and supervised study, in- 
structional differences corresponding to ability groupings, 
failure prevention, vocational counseling and training, ete., 


66 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


are statable primarily in terms of individual capacities and 
interests. Again, the sexualism of adolescent life naturally 
ties up with the psychology of guidance — moral, apprecia: 
tional, and the establishment of proper individual and group 
contacts between the sexes. Finally, the psychology of so- 
cialization is involved in the organization of the school com- 
munity, citizenship training and student government, avoca- 
tional and social activities, and integrating forces in school 
community life. 

The applied phases of this trilogy of adolescent behavior 
in both its instinctive and habitual aspects, as exemplified in 
concrete junior high school practice, are taken up in Section 
II, where separate chapter discussions present the suggestive 
topics mentioned in the preceding paragraph. 

The educational employment or control of instincts. 
From the above discussion of the instinctive or unlearned 
tendencies to respond, it becomes clear that the junior high 
school must have straightforward principles of controlling 
the life of instinct. ‘These are three — cultivation, direc- 
tion, elimination. 

By the cultwation or direct utilization of instincts is meant 
furnishing a suitable stimulus or situation to call them into 
action. ‘The degree to which an environment of shops, lab- 
oratories, art rooms, gymnasium and athletic fields, visual 
instruction, socialized recitation, project method, club activ- 
ities, student government, etc., furnish normal and adequate 
situations leading to instinctive reactions is, of course, very 
great. 

By the direction of instinct is meant either connecting it 
with a situation for which it was not originally prepared, or 


INSTINCTIVE AND UNLEARNED ELEMENT _ 67 


having it expend itself in some motor response differing from 
the original pattern reaction. The entire psychology of the 
conditioned reflex ! suggests the first aspect of the principle, 
and sublimation the second. For illustration, the original 
love or sex instincts may be, and no doubt through junior 
high school instruction are, joined to such situations as great 
masterpieces of art, music, literature, or even the great char- 
acters of religious writings or fiction. Naturally the expres- 
sive side of the instinct takes a form appropriate to the situa- 
tion, so only the central side remains fairly true to the origi- 
nal character of the sex impulse. Perhaps a good illustra- 
tion of direction affecting primarily the expressive side is 
found in the combative activities of rival groups, where the 
pugnacious factors on both the receptive and central sides 
may be quite of the primitive and original type, but the ex- 
pression taking the socially approved form of intellectual 
rivalry of two groups competing for high marks, winning a 
basketball tournament, securing more subscriptions to some 
school activity, or class or school rivalry. 

By elimination is meant rendering an instinctive tendency 
ineffective to control conduct. It is, of course, not to be ar- 
gued that the original pattern upon which a certain unfavor- 
able instinct depends is torn up as one would tear up a trac- 
tion line decreed for abandonment. Rather, it is suggested 
that, by withholding the stimulus normal to call forth an in- 
stinct no longer of direct social value, or perhaps by making 
the result of its action so unhappy for the individual con- 
cerned, either the tendency will wane by disuse or become 
held in check, respectively, in either case not entering into 

1See Chapter VIII, on the “ Emotions.” 


68 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


behavior. For illustration of the former, perhaps unre- 
strained cruelty is practically eliminated from normal hu- 
man behavior primarily because situations are rarely built to 
give it vent; of the latter, a too careless collective urge for a 
classmate’s property or a too marked tendency to play the 
leader may very often be quasi-eliminated through the ap- 
plication of persistent squelchings administered both by the 
teacher and the social group itself. 

The reader should not be over-impressed by the apparent 
simplicity of the above-mentioned principles. In fact, in- 
stinctive activity is always tied up in a very complex fashion 
with conditions that satisfy or annoy the organism. It has 
been pointed out that three conditions may operate: (1) 
when an instinct is ready to act, for it to act is satisfying; (2) 
when an instinct is ready to act, for it not to act is annoying; 
and (3) when an instinct is unready to act, for it to act is an- 
noying. The readiness or unreadiness of the instinctive act 
cannot always, or even often, be stated with accuracy by the 
teacher of the adolescent. 

How acquired reactions modify instinctive tendencies. 
Again, the problem of educational control becomes tremen- 
dously complicated by the fact that, through each single act, 
however instinctive in character, acquired reactions, both 
physical and mental, are secured which operate to give the 
native tendency an indirect, disguised, or sublimated expres- 
sion. ‘The fact is that many instinctive tendencies are not 
carried through to their natural limits, but that all sorts of 
thwarts appear to disturb the feeling-equilibrium of the or- 
ganism and set up a conflict demanding further activity. 
Among the causes of instinctive thwartings may be men- 


INSTINCTIVE AND UNLEARNED ELEMENT _ 69 


tioned a conflict among rivaling instincts, as when the basket- 
ball player is tempted to star rather than to engage in team 
work; the many acquirements from social experiences, in the 
form of habits, ideals, customs, and attitudes, as, for exam- 
ple, the “honesty-is-the-best-policy”’ practice during a writ- 
ten examination, when all one’s instinctive tendencies of 
self-defense, egotism, rivalry, etc., are potential urges to 
appropriate the mental goods of a classmate; finally, the 
conditions of inability, due at times to the subjective impos- 
sibility of capacity to do to keep apace with one’s interest to 
do, or the sheer difficulties of the environing situations in 
which the youth may perhaps be a misfit. 

Angell long ago pointed out that consciousness occupies a 
peculiar intermediate position between instinctive and ac- 
quired ways of behaving, and that it makes its appearance 
primarily as a problem-solving entity when instinctive activ- 
ity is thwarted and is not adequate for meeting the situation 
confronting one. ‘This is to say exactly that habits (learned 
ways of reacting) begin to develop when old ways of behav- 
ing break down, and that habits are acquired not only when 
instincts fail but also in the service of instincts. In a certain 
very real sense the continued repetition of an act through the 
stages required for learning is quite largely determined by 
the state of readiness or unreadiness of the instinctive 
tendency giving it excuse for existence; also, the thwartings 
mentioned in the preceding paragraph are learned adjust- 
ments acquired in service to instinctive demands. 

The general character of adolescent learning, and the cat- 
alogue of learned ways of reacting securable by the adoles- 
cent, comprise the material of the next chapter. 


70 


PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


. Attempt to reclassify the list of instinctive tendencies supplied by 


Thorndike, under individualistic, sexual, and social. 


. Is the adolescent to be held responsible for immoral acts prompted by 


native impulses? 


. Take a group of six adolescents you know, and calculate for each the 


most prominent instinctive drive you detect in their behavior. 


. Furnish concrete illustrations for each principle of control stated for 


instincts. 


. Should a junior high school be organized and operated with direct ref- 


erence to furnishing stimuli for innate tendencies to operate? 


. Describe, in objective terms, the adolescent while instinctively urged: 


(1) to secure social approval in the classroom and on the playground; 
(2) to play; (3) to imitate; (4) to collect; (5) to express rivalry, 


CHAPTER VI 


THE HABITUAL OR LEARNED ELEMENT 
IN RESPONSE 

Lx ARNING is a psychological fact of no more monopoly with 
the child than with the adolescent or adult. As pointed out 
in the discussion of the unlearned ways of reacting, the fact 
of activity is the fundamental one characterizing organisms, 
including persons; that man in all stages of his life reacts 
upon the situations confronting him, either by the unlearned 
(inherited or instinctive) mode, the learned (acquired or 
habitual), or these in combination. 

Material for learning. In discussing the neural aspect of 
unlearned behavior, the reader was urged to think of this as 
correlated with complex innate groupings of simple reflexes 
into proper operating order. In the same way, emphasis 
was placed upon the attainment or connecting of new neural 
pathways as the problem of individual experience or habit 
formation. When one stops to visualize the millions of simple 
neurones, especially cortical, making up the cerebro-spinal 
nervous system (this being the one upon which learning is 
presumably most directly registered), he is almost overawed 
by nature’s highly appropriate provisions for the recording 
of the experiences which the individual, at times both pas- 
sively and actively, undergoes, as well as by the lavishness 
displayed in providing a few million neurones likely never 
to be called upon in the learning activities of the normal 
life. 


72 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


The key to learning, especially from the neural point of 
view, is seen to rest quite fundamentally upon the random, 
spontaneous character of neural action. Frequent illustra- 
tions are always at hand of the fact that excess neural 
strength is very often, even if not constantly, available, and 
that, in the very nature of its necessary outflow into hun- 
dreds of thousands of neural structures, the basis is laid for 
new connections and new preferred pathways of neural re- 
sponse upon the subsequent presentations of the appropriate 
stimulus. 

The meaning of learning. This factor of random, sponta- 
neous activity is probably found at its maximum with the 
well-nourished infant. In the incessant workings of its mus- 
culature — fingers, arm, limbs, facial muscles — and in its 
cooing, babbling, etc., two significant facts appear. The 
physical organism is producing energy beyond that required 
for carrying on the normal automatic and instinctive proc- 
esses, and this excess energy must get dissipated through the 
safety valve nature has provided, namely, the millions of un- 
organized neural channels, hence resulting in a vast amount 
of apparently useless expenditure of energy. Yet this is 
really the infant’s motor “stock in trade,” out of which he 
will finally form certain proper serial connections, these then 
to be his learned ways of reacting. 

Consequently, the problem of learning becomes that of ef- 
fecting proper connections among a vast amount of unorgan- 
ized spontaneous reflexes. By illustration, learning to talk, 
to control finger and arm movements in writing, to skate, to 
perform gymnastic feats, to conjugate a Latin verb, manipu- 
late apparatus in a scientific laboratory, memorize a poem, 


HABITUAL AND LEARNED ELEMENT 73 


preside over a socialized recitation, etc., would seem to be 
primarily the reorganization into proper serial form of sim- 
pler reflex ways of reacting, long since existing, and awaiting 
only learning (organization) to be transferred from the ran- 
dom and relatively useless into the organized, controlled, 
and useful. 

Learning is to be viewed, therefore, primarily as the modi- 
fication of behavior when the learner is forced to face situa- 
tions for which there is no instinctive or previously learned 
response ready to operate. 

It needs to be kept constantly in mind that it is merely the 
pattern or combination that is acquired, and that each and 
every element in the final complex has no doubt long since 
appeared in the unorganized expressions of the spontaneous 
type. With learning so viewed and so generalized, it is pos- 
sible and advisable to present the logical stages of all learn- 
ing — animal or human, motor or ideational, infantile or 
adolescent. 

Stages in learning. When the individual is presented 
with a situation, physical or mental, and finds no immediate 
way of meeting it, the psychological stage is set for learning. 
The following analysis is logical and, in general, psychologi- 
cally and chronologically accurate. 


(1) Random, excess activity. This stage shows the typical break- 
down in the control of a situation, and is characterized by random 
spontaneous movements and ideas not necessarily or immediately 
related to the solution of the situation confronting the learner. 

(2) Directed activity. This suggests the fixation of attention upon 
that portion of the random activity in which success will probably 
lie. For the case of the adolescent the problem of directing activity 
into the zone of probable success is, of course, relatively simple, 
since his attention may be quite easily controlled and directed. 


74 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


(3) Adaptive activity. This stage brings the successful form of 
reaction, the one that proves adaptive to the needs of the situation. 
Interesting to note, whether the learning is on the motor or idea- 
tional level, the learner seems to stumble upon the adaptive activ- 
ity, and may properly be said to have learned by “‘trial and error.” 
Certainly he is often surprised when, out of a vast amount of 
random activity, he discovers the particular form meeting the 
needs of the situation. 

(4) Repetitive activity. Herein is opportunity provided for fix- 
ating the adaptive responses in proper serial order, and for elimi- 
nating not only the unsuccessful ones but also those interfering with 
the speed and accuracy of the proper adjustment. 

(5) Codrdinated activity. ‘This final stage suggests the finished 
product of learning wherein, upon the proper situation presenting 
itself, the learned response is made with a perfectibility rivaling any 
unlearned way of reacting. 


Complex learning situations. Typical complex learning 
situations faced by the adolescent reveal the accuracy of the 
foregoing analysis. For instance, consider the case of learn- 
ing the following gymnasium exercise: 


The instructor faces the parallel bars, grasps them in a certain 
manner, vaults astride, does a shoulder roll, points his toes, re- 
sumes the straddling position and dismounts to the right. The ob- 
servant youth in turn attempts to grasp the bars and give the same 
graceful leap as his instructor. Generally to the sorrow of bruised 
shins he finds that even the preliminary vaulting has its success 
conditioned by a nicety of codperation of leg, arm, and eye muscles, 
and that this does not come automatically but only after repeated 
attempts. Furthermore, that once astride the bars his troubles 
have just begun, for legs, arms, hands, head, and other portions of 
his anatomy seem hopelessly at cross purposes as he attempts to 
perform the shoulder roll without losing his grip upon the bars, and 
crashing through to the floor. After considerable boosting, and 
sustaining by the instructor, he fairly rolls off the apparatus, and 
the first trial is completed. After having the errors of his execu- 
tion pointed out, and perhaps seeing the instructor or his class- 


HABITUAL AND LEARNED ELEMENT 75 


mates perform the exercise many times, the novice tries again and 
again, and finally learns to cxecute the new codrdination with ease 
and accuracy. 


In the above illustration the random excess activity may 
continue for many trials, quite in spite of the pattern set and 
special instruction given regarding the way to direct atten- 
tion in meeting the situation. Again, when the boy finally 
navigates his first unassisted roll, he is likely to be quite at a 
loss as to just how he placed arms, elbows, limbs, etc., so 
that he finally secured a fairly satisfactory result. Finally, 
only after many acts of repetition does he smooth out the 
rough places, eliminate permanently the unnecessary move- 
ments, and finally secure the “good form” expected in any 
such coérdinated activity. 

A second illustration may be drawn from the case of a girl 
student learning to solve an original problem in geometry: 


_ By the very nature of the reading process, the initial amount of 
random activity is cut down and the learner attempts to size up 
the immediate bearings of the problem and speculate regarding its 
solution. In this search for the adaptive activity, much random 
and waste activity may generally be observed, as when the student 
attempts to draw the basic figure and study it for suggestions, to 
try circumscribing a circle about the triangle or to erect perpen- 
dicular bisectors to the sides, to turn back to the probably related 
propositions and try to discover a cue there, or perhaps ask Mary 
to let her see her drawing, etc. When the proper cue finally pre- 
sents itself, the student generally is no less taken by surprise than 
in the case of the gymnast who learned largely by trial and error. 
Of course, the geometry student spares herself the long stages of 
repetitive activity, although she often wishes for these during the 
subsequent recitation or long-deferred written examination period, 
when she realizes that the one single adaptive success so happily 
stumbled upon has become lost through not being “hammered in” 
by repetition. 


%6 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


Certain laws of learning. The above illustrations of typi- 
cal adolescent learnings, the one motor and the other largely 
ideational, suggest the following: 

(1) All complex acts of learning approximate the fivefold 
analysis set forth, and are to be understood primarily as of 
the “trial and error” type. 

(2) No amount of good pattern-setting completely frees 
the learner from making to some degree his own discovery 
and fixing the proper responses. 

(3) Random spontaneous activity, either in movements or 
ideas, is present in all such learning, and the discovery of the 
adaptive response comes only after a process of “try, try 
again,” either on the motor or ideational level. 

(4) The so-called laws of learning — better, of habit fixa- 
tion — are primarily statable in terms of the recency, fre- 
quency, and intensity of certain of the numerous reactions 
provoked by the learning situation. They are not to be un- 
derstood primarily in terms of satisfyingness stamping in the 
successful responses, and dissatisfyingness stamping out the 
non-adaptive ones; rather, the mechanically operating and 
mathematically statable laws of the recency, frequency, and 
strength of the successful response go a long way toward de- 
scribing what is actually taking place when the adolescent is 
learning a new way of meeting a situation not readily and 
directly handled by instinctive or earlier learned methods. 

(5) Simple acts of learning oceur constantly, and these 
seem to be both merely incidental to the major activities of 
the learning and statable in the far simpler terms of an asso- 
ciative bond or connection, as, for example, the student 
seeing the side-by-sideness of the amicus-friend bond. On 


HABITUAL AND LEARNED ELEMENT 77 


analysis, however, it will be seen that even such simple acts of 
learning involve to a degree probably all the stages outlined 
for more complex ones, and that the actual learning involved 
in setting up merely a simple bond is far more complex than 
it is sometimes portrayed.} 

Instinct in relation to habit. In keeping with all that has 
gone before in reference both to the control of instinct and 
the character of learning, the reader naturally comes to see 
that, when the unlearned way of meeting a situation fails, 
modification in behavior normally takes place — mental or 
physical — and that all such learned adjustments are ac- 
quired in the service of instinctive trends. It is easy to see, 
for example, that. such skills as writing, reading, and calcu- 
lating have developed primarily because the pupil has found 
himself in situations worthy of control but wherein he himself 
was lacking. Charters makes full use of this fundamental 
psychology in emphasizing the function of all such truly ra- 
cial subject-matter, and its relation to individual instinct, 
interest, problem, and need.? 

Learned ways of behavior. It is interesting to point out a 
further fact, not too often realized — that all individuals, 
adults no less than children, often adjust with great difficulty 
to the thwarting of their more basic wants, and either suffer 
a mental break under the strain, or secure most subtle ways 
of indirectly exercising or adjusting to a thwarted tendency. 
These constitute learnings often of profound significance in 


? Judd, C. H., and Buswell, G. T., Silent Reading. Supplementary Educa. 
tional Monographs, no. 28. (University of Chicago Press, 1922.) 

* Charters, W. W., Methods of Teaching. (Row, Peterson and Company, 
1909.) 


78 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


individual behavior, even though they may seem generally 
to expend themselves primarily upon the mental level. Typ- 
ical forms are as follows: (1) the introversions, wherein the 
individual meets his problem through imagination and men- 
tal identification instead of actually; (2) rationalizations, 
wherein one may attempt to justify a certain act even 
though he realizes its irrationality, to project the responsi- 
bility for the thwarting upon some innocent party, or even to 
persuade himself that the thwarted activity was really not a 
desirable one; (3) the prejudices, whereby one refuses to en- 
tertain any evidence likely to unsettle certain very basic 
desires; (4) compensations, whereby a substituted act may 
take the place of the one thwarted; and finally, (5) the disso- 
ciation or repression of desires unable to be faced either di- 
rectly or indirectly. 

Learned behavior illustrated. The reader need but re- 
flect upon the actions of any adolescent to find countless 
illustrations of the above-mentioned learned ways of behav- 
ior! They go a long way toward explaining such manifesta- 
tions of adolescence as the following: to imagine one’s self 
acclaimed the football star; to find identification with King 
Arthur, Robin Hood, or other ideal characters; to explain a 
low examination grade in terms of the teacher’s unfair treat- 
ment rather than real inferiority, or else to seek solace by 
an appeal to the fact that one should not expect to succeed in 
both body and brains; to refuse to admit that any good thing 
can come out of the Nazareth of a rival school; to substitute a 


1 For a fuller account, see Wells, F. L., Mental Adjustments. (D. Apple- 
ton and Company, 1920.) The topic is again treated in Part IV of Sec- 
tion I. 


HABITUAL AND LEARNED ELEMENT 79 


multiplicity of kind acts toward the teacher for real student 
endeavor; or, finally, to seek to wear the ring of one’s 
adolescent lover. 

It is clear that, by the time adolescence is reached, the pu- 
pil has at his command a gigantic stock of reacting mechan- 
isms — reflexive, instinctive, or learned (habitual); that 
these latter, whether primarily physical or mental, direct or 
“escape” mechanisms, understood by the possessor or not, 
have been slowly forming in service to the instincts; and that 
adolescence will find the individual placed in a wider set of 
environing situations requiring adjustments differing perhaps 
in quantity but not in kind. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. In the task of guiding the learning of a pupil, which of the five stages in 
learning gives the teacher the greatest opportunity to aid the learner? 

2, Analyze into its stages the complete act of learning to manipulate the 
typewriter; knit; extract the cube root of a polynomial; memorize 
Thanatopsis. 

3. “Alllearning is by trial-and-error, ideational learning being suggestive 
of the level (ideational not motor) upon which the learning takes 
place.’ Evaluate the truth of this statement. 

4. Is the capacity to learn innate or acquired? 

5. Illustrate from your own life each type of thwarted adjustment. 
What shall the adolescent do with his thwarted desires? 

6. Analyze the following case into its constituent elements, showing the 
elements making up the stimulus and the instinctive and learned fac- 
tors entering into the response: 

On the eve of the annual football game, several hundred students, 
boys and girls, advanced upon the school building of the rival school, 
decorated it with pennants and streamers, and painted characteristic 
legends upon its marble facade, with the result that hundreds of dol- 
lars of damage was done and disciplinary measures were considered 
necessary by the school authorities. 


80 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


SELECTED REFERENCES FOR PART II 


Angell, J. R. Psychology, chap. xx. (1908.) 

Dewey, J. Human Nature and Conduct, Partst and tm. (1922.) 
Freud, S. Psychopathology of Everyday Life. (1914.) 

Gates, A. Psychology for Students of Education, chaps. rx and x. (1923.) 
James. W. Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, chap. tv. (1890.) 
McDougall, W. Social Psychology, chaps. u, m1, v. (1912.) 
Thorndike, E. L. Educational Psychology, vels.t andu. (1913.) 
Educational Psychology, Briefer Course, chaps. X and x1. (1914.) 
Elements of Psychology. (1996.) 

Tracy, F. The Psychology of Adolescence, chap. v.  (1920.) 

Watson, J. B. Psychology, chaps. 1, v1, ix, x1. (1919.) 








PART II 


SYSTEMATIC ASPECTS OF ADOLESCENT 
MENTALITY 


CHAPTER VII 
KNOWING AND THE ADOLESCENT 


For many generations it has been customary to discuss the 
mental life under three headings — knowing, feeling, and 
willing. ‘This classification of mental activity offers practi- 
cal values quite outweighing the dangers the student of psy- 
chology may face should he allow himself to think of these 
three aspects of mental life as separate, either in structure or 
functioning. ‘This triple classification offers logical values, 
and gives opportunity to set fairly clearly and in classified 
form the facts of major significance regarding the mentality 
of the adolescent. 

General psychology of knowing. By the knowledge proc- 
esses are meant those processes of mind constituting the 
“whats” of consciousness. In their totality they include 
the mental materials and processes commonly grouped under 
sensation and perception, and having reference primarily to 
the world objective to the individual; memory, association, 
and imagination, having reference primarily to the reten- 
tion and reinstatement of earlier mental processes; and, fi- 
nally, the logical processes of conception, judgment, and rea- 
soning, referring primarily to the use of the more elementary 
processes made by the individual in meeting the complex sit- 
uations in which he constantly finds himself placed. 


82 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


As a matter of logical distinction, it is, of course, true that 
one may conveniently speak of these “whats” of conscious- 
ness — the sensations of red, blue, etc.; perceptions of ob- 
jects in the environment; memories and imaginative produc- 
tions; and, finally, the vast collection of concepts, instances, 
and powers of judgment and the trains of judgments making 
up the rational or thought process, quite in contradistinction 
to the affective or feeling-tone accompanying these knowl- 
edge processes; likewise in distinction to the activity or voli- 
tional aspects as viewed both from the mental and physical 
side. ‘These “whats” of consciousness commonly make up 
the materials of experience, and presumably are retained in 
definite neural traces left on the cortex of the brain. The 
terms knowledge, cognition, and even intellect or intelligence 
are commonly employed as practically synonymous to the 
“whats” of consciousness. 

Recent important developments. Two rather significant 
developments in the psychology of the knowledge processes 
have been made in very recent years: 

(1) The general or common features of knowledge have 
been brought into contrast with the more specialized. It is 
becoming quite customary to speak of the general materials 
and processes of perception, memory, conception, reasoning, 
etc., and, in addition, of the special capacities of musical tal- 
ent, art, mechanical abilities, special disabilities in the num- 
ber sense, etc. This suggests the rather wide and common 
distribution of the knowledge processes among mankind, and 
the further distribution of special traits and powers to cer- 
tain individuals in any large group. 

(2) The attempt is being made regularly to give a quanti- 


KNOWING AND THE ADOLESCENT 83 


tative, mathematical statement of the knowledge processes 
in such a way that, after measurement, it becomes possible 
to state how much or how little the individual possesses of 
materials and powers constituting knowledge. In most in- 
stances this move towards measurement has been to secure a 
cross section of the knowing powers of mind; by giving appro- 
priate tests in such fields as those above listed, to arrive 
finally with a fairly clear profile of the knowledge functions 
of the mind; and, by addition, to arrive also at a conclusion 
as to the entire strength of the intelligence of the individual 
being measured. This quantitative aspect represents prob- 
ably the most outstanding contribution made by modern 
psychology for application and employment in the approach 
to vexing educational problems. 

Conditions of adolescent knowledge. As one reads the 
extensive literature regarding adolescence, he generally 
comes to the conclusion that adolescence is a period showing 
quite marked improvement or enlargement of the knowledge 
processes. Certain writers emphasize the serial or periodic 
development of the mind in general, consequently urging 
that sense perception and sensory discrimination should ap- 
pear prominent in the education of young children. They 
also hold that memory and habit-fixation with drill represent 
the crowning psychology before the age of twelve, and that 
adolescence becomes primarily the age for reasoning. Other 
writers have emphasized the appearance in adolescence not 
only of the reasoning powers of mind, but also an increased 
acuity of the various sensory processes, for example, vision, 
smell, hearing, touch, and even taste, as well as the appear- 
ance of radically new interests and a remarkable freeing of 
imagination. 


84 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


As offered against this theory of periodic development, 
which lends itself so easily to the saltatory view entertained 
by some writers on adolescence, there may be placed the more 
recent theory of concomitant development. This latter 
viewpoint would emphasize that all the basic mental powers 
begin their functioning very early in the life of infancy, 
and that their relative strength as shown from time to time 
is determined by the amount of exercise they have had, as 
well as by the type of experience and materials provided 
them for exercise. Adherence to the first viewpoint is re- 
flected by such writers as Hall, Slaughter, Tracy, Lancaster, 
Rosenkrantz, and perbaps Bagley; the later view being 
represented by Dewey, Thorndike, Terman, and other psy- 
chologists whose point of approach to the problem has 
been primarily that of educational and intelligence measure- 
ments. 

A survey of the experimental literature gives evidence in 
favor of the second viewpoint only. There is no evidence 
secured, under controlled laboratory conditions, that shows 
any “‘sharpening of the senses” for the adolescent. The 
statistics for memory and imagination, as read from any 
typical table of norms having to do with such mental feats as 
the memory span for digits, concrete, abstract, related or un- 
related words, or memory ideas, show nothing but a gradual 
growth from the eighth year on to later adolescence. Even 
the logical processes have made their appearance long before 
the beginning of the teen age, it being shown, upon psycho- 
logical analysis, that all mental factors involved in the 
reasoning processes — for example, as employed in high 
school mathematics — have long since operated in the 


KNOWING AND THE ADOLESCENT 85 


process of reading and understanding the typical sentences 
presented to even the child of the second grade. 
Significance of adolescent knowledge in adolescent de- 
velopment. The significance of the above is that in the 
knowledge life the adolescent differs from the child in just 
about the same way that children, adolescents, and adults 
differ among themselves. To quote Thorndike, we read that: 


Not some mysterious inner transformation, but the enlargement 
and refinement of experience, the formation of systems and suitable 
ideas, the knowledge of aspects or elements of things essential to 
different purposes, the acquisition and habitual use of systematic 
methods of forming and testing conclusions, the growth of skepti- 
cism concerning the similarity of things alike in some respects, the 
definition of terms and the crystallization of experiences into judg- 
ments, are what make the rational man out of the blundering 


child.? 


This viewpoint finds itself in close agreement with the 
treatment given instincts in the preceding chapter. It em- 
phasizes that the instinctive and habitual powers of reaction 
have been in operation through all of pre-adolescence; that 
nothing radically new of an instinctive type is to make its ap- 
pearance in adolescence; that all the adolescent’s powers of 
mind are so interrelated and interconnected that the theory 
of concomitant development alone becomes tenable; and 
that the marked differences of intelligence shown among 
adolescents must be explained in terms of differing original 
endowment and the effects resultant upon the experience 
and training the particular individual has had. 

1 Thorndike, E. L., Notes on Child Study (2d edition), p. 97; reference 


quoted from Inglis, A., Principles of Secondary Education, p. 46. (Hough- 
ton Mifflin Company, 1918.) 


86 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


Measurement of adolescent intelligence. Psychologists 
have shown considerable inability to agree upon a satisfac- 
tory definition of intelligence, and yet agreement is quite 
general that, in speaking of intelligence, they have reference 
primarily to the knowledge powers of mind instead of the 
emotional and volitional; to the innateness aspect, rather 
than the acquired; to the capacity for learning, rather 
than to the mere detailed knowledge facts which have been 
learned; finally, that it is “the capacity of an individual to 
adapt himself to a new situation.” ! 

In spite of any seeming lack of definiteness in definition, 
few psychologists have any hesitancy in proceeding to the 
measurement of mental powers comprising the so-called gen- 
eral intelligence, being convinced apparently that the meas- 
urements secured have such strong values in the applied 
fields of predicting and controlling the behavior of those 
tested as to impel the securing of these values, even though 
preliminary definition may be somewhat lacking in definite- 
ness. A study of the typical instruments for measurement, 
the so-called general intelligence tests, shows not only that 
the testers are quite in agreement as to the types of tests to 
be employed for inventorying certain mental powers, but 
that the powers or processes investigated are primarily the 
knowledge functions. For example, any typical group test 
for general intelligence is likely to contain, among its battery 
of exercises, certain questions or problems having to do with 
understanding and carrying out simple directions, arithmeti- 
cal reasoning, common-sense judgments, memory, compari- 


1 Hines, H. C., Measuring Intelligence, p. 11. Riverside Educational 
Monographs. (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923.) 


KNOWING AND THE ADOLESCENT 87 


son, generalization, straightening out mixed-up situations, 
and the range of information possessed by the individual 
being tested. 

Overlapping of mental ages. The reader is doubtless 
familiar with the terms employed for stating the results of 
intelligence measurement, notably, the mental age (M.A.), 
intelligence quotient (I.Q.), and accomplishment quotient 
(A.Q.). It is doubtful, however, whether most of us have 
lived sufficiently long with the startling facts of psychomet- 
rics, regularly to be found in any typical school or classroom, 
as to be brought to a proper realization of the wide range of 
intelligence among children of the same chronological age 
and the vast overlapping in the mental ages of children in 
the several grades of the public schools. Terman ! has pre- 
sented a figure to show the actual distribution of mental ages 
disclosed by the Stanford-Binet scale in first, fifth, and ninth 
grades of a typical public school system, emphasizing the 
fact that the upper portion of both the first grade and the 
fifth grade overlaps the lower portion of the fifth and ninth 
grades respectively. It is also shown that, upon investigat- 
ing the intelligence of nearly one hundred unselected school 
children twelve years of age, the range of I.Q. was from 66- 
75 (5 per cent of the cases) to 126-135 (8 per cent of the cases), 
with the mode at 96-105 (28 per cent of the cases). Finally, 
when one undertakes to find out whether the adolescent is 
classified and working in the grade presumably dictated by 
his general intelligence, the following is shown. (See table 
on page 88.) 


1 Terman, L. M., The Intelligence of School Children, pp. 25-26. (Hough- 
ton Mifflin Company, 1919.) 


88 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


GRADE ATTENDED 


Menta AGE 
(Years and months) 


11-6 to 12-5 1.0% | 8.3% | 19.8% | 41.1% | 16.6% | 12.5% | 


12-6 to 13-5 2.6% | 9.0% | 37.1% | 24.3% | 27.0% 
13-6 to 14-5 1.5% 6.0% | 31.0% | 23.5% | 38.2% 





The above and any desired amount of similar facts show- 
ing the failure of typical school classification either to pro- 
vide grades of homogeneous mental ability, or to place the 
individual child in the particular grade likely to make an ap- 
propriate tax upon his mentality, lead the student of adoles- 
cence to investigate such topics as the intelligence of typical 
adolescent groups entering the seventh grade, the junior, and 
the regular or senior high school, as well as the educational 
outlook and history for entrants of known intelligence. 

General intelligence and typical adolescent groups. The 
intelligence make-up of adolescent groups naturally found in 
school makes an interesting story. Certain of the more typ- 
ical groups are discussed below. The reader must keep con- 
stantly in mind the fact that, whenever figures are presented 
to show the characteristics of seventh graders, junior high 
school entrants, etc., he has, while a valuable, only a partial 
picture of all adolescents about the ages 12 to 14 years. This 
is, of course, due to the fact that school retardation and elimi- 
nation have been at work, even from the first grade, both to 
“load”’ the elementary grades with repeaters and to elimi- 
nate the failing adolescent at the earliest legal age, often be- 
fore he has reached the level of the school system supposedly 


KNOWING AND THE ADOLESCENT 89 


prepared as his typical school (the junior high school). 
With the age-grade statistics of Ayres, Strayer, Thorndike, 
King, Morton, Berry and others in mind, all tending to show 
that, in keeping with the general rule that approximately 
one child in three is retarded, of which more than five per 
cent are retarded three years or more, and nearly fifteen per 
cent two years or more, the reader must consider that the 
facts set forth below somewhat overstate the case for adoles- 
cence and make results appear more favorable than they 
would if the groups were not partially selected in character. 

The educational treatment of adolescents. Facts signifi- 
cant for the educational treatment of adolescents are shown 
by the following: 

(1) Junior high school entrants in a large city school system. 
Reference to the statistics listed in Part I of Section II of 
this book shows the enormous range of intelligence scores of 
adolescents entering simultaneously the Washington Junior 
High School, Rochester, New York. Ina very significant ar- 
ticle, Glass ! shows both the necessity and practicability of 
forming nine 7B classes out of the large group of entrants, 
making each homogeneous in respect to intelligence as shown 
through testing. Also, he points out the curricular adjust- 
ments made for groups of known intellectual capacity, espe- 
cially for the two lowest study coach classes, and the unusual 
value of intelligence measures not only as placement aids but 
also as a check upon the promotional standards of the 6A 
teachers. 

(2) Entrants in a small junior high school. That the wide 


1 Glass, J. M., “Classification of Pupils in Ability Groups”; in School Re- 
view, vol. 28, pp. 495-508. 1920.) 


90 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


distribution of adolescent intelligence is not unique for a 
large, cosmopolitan city junior high school is shown by such 
results as were gathered by Fuson ! for the Covington, Ken- 
tucky, Junior High School. The range of I.Q. was from 75 
to 154 per cent, with the median at 116. 

The median I.Q. for the best half of this student group (70 
in number), as selected by 6A promotion marks, was 116 per 
cent, the lower half 110 per cent. Two 7B classes were then 
organized largely on the basis of the I.Q., it being thought de- 
sirable to place in the poorer group no one whose I.Q. was 
above the median of the better group. As finally deter- 
mined, the better group showed median I.Q. and 6A aca- 
demic records of 127 and 91.6 per cent respectively, the 
lower 102 and 84.8 per cent respectively. 

(3) Entrants in the ninth grade of the four-year high school. 
Proctor has analyzed, perhaps better than any one else, the 
typical student material with which the ninth grade of the 
four-year high school works.?. For 137 entrants to the Palo 
Alto High School, he recounts an age range from 13-0 to 19- 
3, with a median of 14-11. The mental age scores ranged 
from 12-8 to 19-6, with a median of 15-10. 

(4) Intelligences and success in high school. A study of the 
relation between mental age and the school marks of these 
entrants (correlation .45), the I.Q. and school work (corre- 
lation .545); as well as the intelligence of the entrants who 
do not reénter high school the following year, lead Proctor 


1 Fuson, H. H., from unpublished data on file at the College of Educa- 
tion, University of Cincinnati. 

*See Terman, L. M., The Intelligence of School Children, pp. 75 sq. 
(Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919.) 


KNOWING AND THE ADOLESCENT 91 


to conclude that — in spite of the fact that the long period 
of elementary school work had sufficed to eliminate practi- 
cally 60 per cent of those of high school age — the high school 
elimination was itself still further highly selective; that the 
pupils who dropped out were mainly of inferior ability; that 
the typical high school offers little which can be done by 
pupils not possessing at least 90 I.Q.; and that such a high 
school is withholding proper training suitable to a third 
of the children of high school age, primarily since these 
children do not possess, in sufficient amount, the particular 
type of intelligence required for mastering the course of 
study so typical of the so-called best high schools. 

(5) Intelligence of high school seniors. In the significant 
state-wide survey of high school seniors, Book! shows, 
among other findings, the enormous age and intelligence 
range of students graduating from the twelfth grade of the 
high school; that the younger graduates almost without ex- 
ception show the superior intelligence, hence duplicating the 
findings for the elementary school; that seniors with all 
grades of mental ability, from the lowest to the highest, are 
going to college in about equal numbers; that the high 
schools of the state are not adapting themselves to the in- 
equalities in native mental strength of their students as well 
as they should; and finally, that many adolescents have not 
planned to go on to college even though their abilities are of 
the highest order, while many others plan upon college and a 
professional career without seeming to have the ability to 
succeed. 


1 Book, W. F., The Intelligence of High School Seniors. (The Macmillan 
Company, 1922.) 


92 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


(6) Adolescents in college. Water adolescence, as measured 
by psychologists in practically every university and college 
since their return from the psychological work of the World 
War, shows the range and variability of mental age found 
typical for all other groups, selected or unselected, elemen- 
tary or high school, mentioned above. The massive periodi- 
cal literature of the last few years merely calls attention to 
facts the college authorities have long since known — that 
the colleges receive the intellectually élite of the population 
of college age; that probably 10 to 15 per cent of the race has 
the capacity to do the work, as regularly set by the liberal 
arts college; and that colleges admitting by examinations and 
other methods of rigid selection tend to draw an entering 
class of higher median intelligence than the institution ad- 
mitting upon certification of high school graduation. 

(7) Adolescent intelligence and school accomplishment. 
Studies made of the degree to which the adolescent puts to 
use his capacity to do school work shows quite uniformly 
that the brighter students, while, of course, doing better 
work in absolute terms than their slower classmates, do rela- 
tively poorer when accomplishment is studied in relation to 
intelligence. For example, it has been shown! that, for 
seventh-grade groups made up as fast or slow on the basis of 
teachers’ marks, no one of the brighter sections in this or any 
other grade lived up to the expectations properly made upon 
it, while the poorer sections were quite uniform in accom- 
plishing 100 per cent or more than would seem proper for 
the intelligence capacity possessed. The writer showed the 


1 Stebbins, Rena, and Pechstein, L. A., “‘Quotients I, E, and A”; in 
Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 13, pp. 385-98. (1922.) 


KNOWING AND THE ADOLESCENT 93 


same results when he determined the accomplishment quo- 
tients (A.Q.) for college students in a single college study. 
An inspection of Tables V, VI, and VII shows that adoles- 
cents, just like the rest of mankind, employ their varying 
mental endowments in school achievement with a zeal in- 
Tas_E V. SHOWING THE PERCENTAGE oF Pupits IN ELEMENTARY 


ScHOOL AND COLLEGE FALLING WITHIN CERTAIN EFFICIENCY 
GROUPS 


COLLEGE 
ELEMENTARY 


ScHOOL 


Women Total 


Below 90 A.Q...... 
90-110 A.Q........ 
Above 110 A.Q..... 





Taste VI. Frequency DistriBuTion or ACCOMPLISHMENT 
- QUOTIENTS 


COLLEGE 
ACCOMPLISHMENT ELEMENTARY 


QUOTIENTS SCHOOL 
Women Total 


40-49 
50-59 
60-69 
70-79 
80-89 
90-99 
100-109 
110-119 
120-129 
130-139 
140-149 
150-159 
160-169 
170-179 


bet bed et OD et OD OD SE OT HE OO OO 





94 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


Taste VII. SHowina tHE CHRONOLOGICAL, MENTAL, AND 
EpucationaL Acres or Six VIJ—-A Pupits, SELECTED FOR 
SHOWING THE INTERPRETATIVE VALUE FOR THE INDIVIDUAL 
CHILD OF THE SEVERAL MEASURES PRESENTED 


EDUCATIONAL AGES QUOTIENTS 


Addition 
Subtraction 
Multiplica- 
Division 
Sentence 
Spelling 
Spelling 


..|18-8)11— 2)10-10)12—4)13— 3/13—2)13-11}12-10/10-10|10-3/12-0| 82} 88/108 
...|12-8/16— 8/13-11)11-8/12— 7/11—5/11—-10}14-11/13-— 9|12-6/13-6)132)|107| 80 
... . /13-8)13-11)12— 8/15—-1]12-10)13-5/13— 5)13- 9|14-10|14-2|13-6)101| 99} 97 
.-- {10-9} 9- 6)11— 3)11-O/11— 9)11-7)12— 0)12-11/10-10| 9-9)11-8) 57) 70)123 
.. |18-4)15— 7)14— 4/14-5)14— 0)14-6]14— 8/13-— 9)14— 8)13-5|14—-2/117)106} 91 
.. |10-4/16- 0}15- 6)15-5)14— 4/14-6}14— 4)15—- 6)15-— 2|10—-0)15-3/155)148) 95 


D.M. 
RUZ. 
E.D., 
G.M 
S. 
S.F.. 





versely in proportion to its possession, and that the curricu- 
lar requirements set by the more orthodox teacher demand 
and secure far more from him possessing mediocre capacity 
than is required or secured from the unusually gifted. 

(8) Sex differences among adolescents. 'The modern meth- 
ods of measuring intelligence throw considerable light upon 
this question of perennial interest. It has, of course, long 
been assumed that the male is more intelligent than the fe- 
male of the species, although writers on adolescence have 
seemed to admit a superiority in native wit shown by the 
girl up until the onset of adolescence. Of course, adoles- 
cence has been deemed a period wherein reasoning comes to 
show itself, hence the masculine monopoly of that mental 
trait naturally brought the youth to pass the maid in the 
early teens, and to continue to hold the superiority in intelli- 
gence which he had somewhat tardily attained. 


‘KNOWING AND THE ADOLESCENT 95 


A survey of the results of intelligence tests throws this 
conclusion into question. ‘Terman has shown! that the 
average intelligence of women and girls is as high as that of 
men and boys, although there is some slight yet inconclusive 
evidence that, from about the fourteenth year on, the aver- 
age boy seems to pass the girl. This fact must be dis- 
counted, however, for a grouping by sexes of entering classes 
in college shows a median superiority for the youth only 
when the masculinely conceived Army Alpha test is used; 
employment of the Otts (this much more typical of the school 
experience the college freshman has had) shows the same 
median for the two sexes. 

In general, the following seem the safe conclusions to 
draw: sex differences in intelligence, as shown either in early 
or late adolescence, are small and insignificant; such differ- 
ences as may appear are trivial in comparison with the enor- 
mous range shown by either sex; the range of variability is 
slightly more marked for the male, both with reference to 
gross inferiority and marked superiority; nothing exists from 
the standpoint of intelligence to give any scientific justifica- 
tion for segregation in classes, classification in ability-groups, 
guidance, etc. The above statements are true as presenting 
a total and average picture of adolescent mentality, although 
it is no less true that the 


boys were decidedly better in arithmetical reasoning, giving differ- 
ences between a president and a king, solving the form board, 





1Terman, L. M., The Measurement of Intelligence, p. 69. (Houghton 
Mifflin Company, 1916.) 

* Hendrickson, G., ““Assaying and Interpreting the Intelligence Factor 
with College Students.’’ (Unpublished Master of Arts thesis, University 
of Rochester Library.) 


96 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


making change, reversing hands of clock, finding similarities, and 
solving the “induction test.”’ The girls were superior in drawing 
designs from memory, esthetic comparison, comparing objects 
from memory, answering the “comprehension questions,” repeat- 
ing digits and sentences, tying a bow-knot, and finding rhymes. 


(9) Maturity of intelligence during adolescence. Psycholo- 
gists have found themselves quite in agreement that general 
intelligence reaches its normal maximum of growth during 
adolescence. The mental age of sixteen has often been con- 
sidered typical for the so-called normal adult intelligence, 
and this age has been used in most calculations for determin- 
ing subnormality among adults. ‘Terman has been largely 
responsible for popularizing this particular mental age as 
connoting maturity of general intelligence, but no one is 
more ready than Terman to state the probable unreliability 
of this particular choice. In fact, the recent discussions of 
Bagley, Whipple, Terman, Rusk, Doll, and Dearborn raise 
questions not only regarding the normal time for the ma- 
turity of general intelligence, but also some questions re- 
garding the exact character of what is maturing. 

This is not the place for dipping one’s oar into the trou- 
bled waters stirred up by the illustrious navigators mentioned 
in the preceding paragraph.! It may be pointed out, how- 
ever, that the controversy at least has cleared the atmos- 
phere to such an extent that the average reader of these 
pages may safely think of general intelligence as being made 


1 The reader is referred to Hines, H. C., Measuring Intelligence (Riverside 
Educational Monographs) chap. vim, ““The Measurement of Intelligence 
and Democracy in Education,” for what is probably the best summary of 
the recent controversy regarding the nature and significance of the maturing 
of general intelligence. 


KNOWING AND THE ADOLESCENT 97 


up quite largely of the more basic knowledge functions; that 
these, as mental tools for the acquirement of mere knowledge 
facts, presumably reach their maximum of normal growth 
during adolescence. Bagley and others would admit this 
fact and think of this aspect of mental growth as vertical in 
character, hence considering the specific acquirement of the 
broad facts of knowledge and skills as the aspect of horizon- 
tal growth, both preceding and following the maximum at- 
tainment of the vertical. This distinction of the vertical 
and horizontal aspects of mental development has been 
drawn for nearly two decades, and all students in the field of 
individual differences must keep it sharply in mind. Upon 
the facts of vertical growth rest primarily the main argu- 
ments in favor of the differentiated curricula of junior and 
senior high schools, since, presumably, such curricula give op- 
portunity for individual vertical growth to the fullest extent 
possible, permitting detailed training of the specialized type 
to take place as the horizontal aspect of mental develop- 
ment. 

The exact age at which this vertical aspect of general in- 
telligence tends to reach maturity is, as said earlier in this 
chapter, open to some debate. Doll! has emphasized with 
some vigor that the median general intelligence age should 
be 134 years, herein reducing the Terman norm by 24 men- 
tal years. Doll’s conclusions are drawn primarily from the 
study of the scores made by drafted men in the United 
States army. While Doll’s results are suggestive and have 
values in themselves, they are not drawn from a sufficiently 


1 Doll, E. A., ““New Thoughts about the Feeble-Minded”’; in Journal of 
Educational Research, June, 1923. 


98 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


unselected group to furnish reliable guidance for the educa- 
tional handling of adolescence. 

Dearborn has given the results of his investigation of the 
intelligence quotients of adults and mental ages especially of 
adolescents,! basing his findings upon unselected groups of 
14-and-15-year-olds. He was able to secure the most unse- 
lected group of adolescents we have on record, since he em- 
ployed a large number of cases who had left high school and 
were at work, together with those still in regular high school 
or part-time instruction. His results in general show that 
the average adult mental age “is approximately fourteen 
and one half years, and that the calculation of the intelli- 
gence quotients on this basis gives results in closer agree- 
ment with established facts than by the method in current 
use. ‘The conclusions of this study are believed to be more 
reliable than those based on the Army Alpha and Binet 
tests, because the tests used in the study are better suited to 
the purpose, the main groups studied more representative, 
and the conditions under which the tests were taken fairer 
for the comparison than in the case of the Army testing.” 

Significance of these studies for the junior high school. 
In keeping with the above, two significant facts may be 
pointed out: (1) the intellectual superiority of adolescents re- 
maining in high school over the mental capacity of adoles- 
cents who have dropped school and are at work is clearly 
shown; and (2) with fourteen and one half assumed as the 
average mental age of adults, one must always expect an 
equal range of variability on each side of this average — 


1 Dearborn, W. F., “Intelligence Quotients of Adults and Related Prob- 
lems’’; in Journal of Educational Research, vol. 6, pp. 307-25. (1922.) 


KNOWING AND THE ADOLESCENT 99 


that cases will be included in the range both of those who 
reached their maximum of intellectual growth quite early 
in childhood as well as others continuing mental growth 
until quite late in adolescence. 

The significance of such facts as the above is undoubtedly 
great. It seems clear that the general powers of intelligence 
— for example, capacity to perceive, discriminate, remem- 
ber, imagine, form concepts, execute acts of judgment and 
reasoning, etc. — reach their normal maximum on the aver- 
age somewhere around the ages fourteen and one half to fif- 
teen. Presumably this means that, with the more basic fac- 
tors of mentality developed, the adolescent is entirely ready 
to adjust to his life-calling and shape his career accordingly. 
Perhaps it is right to state that two major functions of the 
adolescent school are to give the adolescent familiarity with 
the various life-callings, and then to assist him, toward the 
close of the junior high school period, in his choice for a life- 
work. The evidence seems to point to the fact that this act 
of choice naturally is to be made toward the close of the typi- 
cal junior high school period, and at approximately the time 
when general intelligence reaches its maturity of growth. 

Other kinds of intelligence. The question is often raised 
whether the tests of general intelligence do not succeed best 
in measuring the somewhat academic qualities of mind 
which are of fundamental importance for success with the 
typical school curricula. Phrased in another way, do not in- 
telligence tests take account of the subject’s ability to effect 
generalizations and abstractions and to manipulate symbols 
(generally verbal) and the language forms, leaving un- 
touched vast ranges of mentality perhaps more essential for 


100 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


certain individuals in adjusting to problems not normally 
having to do with the characteristic textbook curriculum? 
May not an ability to manipulate things (mechanical intelli- 
gence), or to handle people (social intelligence), sometimes 
be possessed by an adolescent to a degree quite surpassing 
that of manipulating ideas (general intelligence)? Does not 
the student of adolescent mentality, and of course of pre- 
and post-adolescence as well, need to think of the problem of 
educational treatment primarily in the light of the totality of 
the intelligence (general, mechanical, and social) possessed 
by the individual student? 

The answers to many implications of the above questions 
are suggested by Stenquist,! who investigated both the gen- 
eral mechanical ability and general intelligence of several 
hundred adolescent boys attending the seventh and eighth 
grades in a typical public school of New York City. He 
found that the correlation between these two kinds of abili- 
ties is the low one of .21+.07 for the 275 seventh- and 
eighth-grade boys; and that, when the cases are distributed 
into their proper quadrant in respect to the two measures, 
the following percentages are found: 


D. Above average in both general intelligence and mechanical 
ability — 26 per cent. 

B. Above average in general intelligence and below in mechau- 
ical ability — 23 per cent. 

C. Below average in both general intelligence and mechanical 
ability — 20 per cent. 

A. Below average in general intelligence and above in mechan- 
ical ability — 31 per cent. 


1 Stenquist, J. L., Measurements of Mechanical Ability. (Contributions 
to Education, no. 130, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1923.) 


KNOWING AND THE ADOLESCENT 101 


Significance of these facts for guidance. From such figures 
it is easy to conclude that approximately a fourth of adoles- 
cent boys, although below the average in ability required for 
progress in the regular program of school studies, are above 
average ability in mechanical tests (A); approximately an 
equal percentage could justly be encouraged to seek a career 
in mechanical fields, since abilities of both mechanical and 
abstract intelligence are possessed above the average (D); 
another equal percentage to shun specialization in a mechan- 
ical field and seek professional training, wherein abstract in- 
telligence is fundamental (B); and finally, there will remain 
the large group (C), below average in each ability, where, ex- 
cept as quite different types of abilities are occasionally dis- 
covered, education will always find its most difficult and 
discouraging problem. Perhaps out of such groups as the 
four just listed come respectively the expert mechanician, 
the graduate engineer, the lawyer and teacher, and the 
ne’er-do-well known to all communities. 

In considering the educational treatment of adolescents, 
the reader should remember that there is really a case to be 
made for the individual of low I.Q.; that the present strong 
tendency to “attach a stigma to pupils scoring low in the so- 
called general intelligence tests” is wrong; that the wide 
range of individual differences among human beings is 
matched and excelled by the complexity of the countless 
number of tasks — mechanical no less than intellectual or 
social — the work of the world demands; that the privilege 
and obligation of a really democratic system of education 
is to give all children an equal opportunity to develop what- 
ever abilities they may possess, to the end that each shall 


102 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


finally become placed in that social position where he may 
find economic independence, self-respect, and an opportu- 
nity for self-expression and happiness. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. Suggest possible reasons for the theory of periodic development. 

2, Based upon the known facts of adolescent intelligence, answer this 
question: Who should be admitted to the junior high school? 

3. Is there evidence drawn from the data of mental growth to justify a 
6-3-3 plan of organization? A 6-6 plan? 

4, In the light of the data presented in this chapter, justify the following 
functions of an adolescent school: fixation; exploration; making and 
testing a choice. 

5. In a junior high school enrolling 350 pupils September 1, from eight 
contributing schools, how would you set about to organize the first- 
year pupils with special reference to homogeneous classes, curricular 
adjustments, permanency of grouping, and pupils on trial promotion? 

6. What factors other than intelligence may help to determine successful 
student work? 


CHAPTER VIII 
EMOTION AND THE ADOLESCENT 


General psychology of the emotions. Emotion may be 
roughly viewed as the “hows” of consciousness, in distinc- 
tion from the “whats” of consciousness constituting knowl- 
edge. As such, emotions would comprise all feeling states 
giving to any moment of mental life its glow, warmth, pleas- 
antness, or depression; it suggests how the mind is affected or 
toned by the experiences, generally cognitive in character, 
constituting it. Needless to say, the very term “emotion” 
suggests this “moved” or wrought-up state of mind. 

As mentioned in Chapter IV, emotions are to be thought 
of, side-by-side with instincts, as hereditary modes of re- 
sponse. This leads to two ways of viewing the emotion — 
the one mental or subjective, the other physical or objective. 
From the mental and conscious point of view, the emotion is 
the tendency to feel — as opposed to the instinct as a ten- 
dency to act — characteristically in the presence of the situa- 
tion calling both of them forth. As shown in the classification 
by McDougall presented in Chapter V (page 57), each of the 
principal instincts is paralleled by a primary emotion. It is 
doubtless in recognition of this affinity between the two in- 
nate forms of reaction, instinct and emotion, that psycholo- 
gists are often led to speak of the emotion as the conscious- 
ness of instinctive adjustments running their natural course, 
hence sensational in character, and even to confuse such 
purely organic states as fatigue, hunger, and thirst with the 


104 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


much less localizable “hows” of consciousness — the true 
emotion. 

As seen from the second viewpoint, the emotion becomes 
an “hereditary ‘pattern-reaction’ involving profound 
changes of the bodily mechanism as a whole, but particularly 
of the visceral and glandular systems,”’ thus differentiating 
the emotion from the instinct in that the “radius of action 
(of the former) lies within the individual’s own organism; 
whereas in instinct the radius of action is enlarged to such an 
extent that the individual as a whole may make adjustments 
to the objects of the environment.” 

The reader should gain the full measure of truth from each 
of the above — the emotion is a strong feeling-tone compli- 
cating the conscious states of mind; it is innate and inextri- 
cably associated with instincts; and it involves the visceral 
and glandular systems of the body, in contrast to the cere- 
bro-spinal nervous system with which primarily the knowl- 
edge powers of the mind have to do. 

Certain additional facts relating to the general psychology 
of the feeling life may well be listed: 

(1) When one attempts to classify the feeling processes by 
basing the classification upon such logical factors as the 
strength versus weakness or the brevity versus extension of 
the state itself, there is secured a complex result which, while 
in no sense a perfect classification, includes simple affection, 
feeling, emotion, mood, sentiment, temperament and passion. 

(2) Feeling states are generally found inextricably inter- 
woven with cognitive processes, even becoming at times 
firmly organized and associated with certain objects of cog- 
nition, as is the case of the sentiments. 


EMOTION AND THE ADOLESCENT 105 


(3) The development, systematization, and control of the 
emotional life shares importance with both the instinctive 
and cognitive in bringing the individual finally to a satisfac- 
tory ability of reacting, not to the demands of a fairly prim- 
itive jungle existence, but to the complex life of modern 
society. 

The organs of emotional response. Reference has al- 
ready been made to the autonomic nervous system (see 
Chapter I) and to the smooth muscles and glands with which 
it directly functions. When the reader remembers the great 
changes both of glandular structure and function during 
adolescence, together with the fact that the smooth muscles 
and glands primarily constitute the “bodily seat” — better, 
provide the major portion of the sensations constituting the 
emotion — it becomes clear that emotion, both as to tts 
strength, rapidity of growth and disturbance, rates as one of the 
most critical and prominent features of adolescent mentality. 

In the working of the complicated machinery controlled 
by the autonomic system — the smooth muscles, the duct 
glands (salivary, gastric, pancreas, liver, kidney, and skin), 
and the ductless glands (thyroid and parathyroid, adrenal, 
pituitary, pancreas, and especially sex), with emphasis on 
the last-named group — do we seem to find the basis for such 
outstanding facts of adolescent emotion as the following: 


(1) A decided “drive” or depression, placing the youth re- 
spectively quite above or below his normal level of equilibrium. 

(2) Occasional persistency and strength for physical and mental 
application quite beyond the ordinary. 

(3) Occasional inability to accomplish the daily duties, the 
emotional picture being at times that of excitability, depression, or 
instability. 


106 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


The exact physiology of emotional expression has become 
quite clear, thanks to the researches of Cannon, Watson, 
Lewis, and others. Physiological fact is not psychological, 
but the former, in emphasizing that certain emotional stim- 
uli (a) impede, block, or accelerate activity of the duct 
glands and smooth muscles, and (b) cause the release of such 
substances as adrenin (hence producing glycosuria), the au- 
tacoids of the thyroid and the sexual glands, etc. (see Chap- 
ter I), very clearly emphasizes much that relates to the 
expansiveness of adolescent anatomy and physiology. It 
emphasizes the psychological fact that such activities stand 
as preparatory reactions (elaborate preparations for meeting 
a difficult situation, mental or physical) and, in their, occur- 
rence, constitute the so-called conscious elements of the true 
ernotion. 

The genetic study of emotion. If adolescent emotions are 
to be viewed as unlearned pattern-reactions, considered as 
mental or primarily physiological, as the reader may happen 
to choose at the moment, it becomes profitable to give at- 
tention in passing to the primitive emotions of childhood. 
When this is done! through a testing (primarily in maternity 
hospitals) of the stimuli apart from all training adequate for 
calling out such emotional reactions as belong to man’s origi- 
nal and fundamental nature, there result, according to Wat- 
son, probably only three: fear, rage, and love (the last prob- 
ably synonymous with the Freudian sex). So many stimuli 
alleged to call out these emotional reactions failed — for ex- 
ample, the dark, strangers, animals, etc., for fear — that the 


1 Watson, J. B. Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, pp. 199 
sq. (J. B. Lippincott Company, 1919.) 


EMOTION AND THE ADOLESCENT 107 


reader quickly comes to make, not a contraction of emotion 
as a factor in human behavior, but rather to recognize the 
tremendous habit-forming aspects to which the primitive 
emotions, no less than the instincts, are subject. (See page 
59.) All that has been said regarding the inhibition and 
control of instinct, as well as of its attachment and detach- 
ment through the modifying influences of experience, ap- 
plies with equal weight to emotion. 

Adolescent emotions. It has been pointed out already 
that, from the anatomical-physiological viewpoint, the emo- 
tional reactions of the adolescent are many and strong. All 
writers on adolescence are making the most of this fact, and 
urge that admiration, awe, reverence, gratitude, scorn, con- 
tempt, hatred, joy, grief, pity, and shame; the esthetic 
feelings; sentiments having to do with moral approval and 
disapproval; love both for a mate, one’s fellows, and even 
God; and ad infinitum, sweep into existence as perhaps 
the outstanding characteristic of adolescent ‘“‘renaissance.”” 
The reader has long since been warned against entertaining 
a saltatory viewpoint regarding these or any other aspects of 
adolescent mentality. 

In so far as the emotions are concerned, it needs to be 
remembered that: 

(1) Because of the rapid anatomical growth taking place, 
the parallel emotional states doubtless become quantita- 
tively, not markedly qualitatively, different from those of 
pre-adolescence. 

(2) Much of the emotional strength shown through the 
period is assignable, not so much to the new nature of youth, 
as to the far wider range of stimuli and situations the youth 


108 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


naturally is facing, these calling into direct activity emo- 
tional reactions long since potential and no doubt previously 
operative to degree. 

(3) Habit adjustments of the primitive emotional patterns 
have been forming for years, and these have now become suf- 
ficiently extensive as to attract and often compel attention. 

(4) With the gradual expansion of the intellectual life the 
adolescent is thinking more deeply into his experiences — 
with friends, teachers, neighbors, textbooks, recitations — 
and a more complex and intense emotional setting is auto- 
matically aroused. 

(5) The substitutional or compensational aspects de- 
scribed for instinct (pp. 66-78) are now at white-heat for 
the emotions, presumably because, in the conditions stated 
in “1” above, the adolescent must seek expression by some 
escape-mechanism for reactions not considered timely or 
appropriate to his own day and generation. 

Adolescent emotions as modified through experience. 
The preceding paragraph has meant to emphasize the 
strength and range of adolescent emotion without doing in- 
justice to its psychological history and background; also, to 
reduce it to principles common for all mental development 
and growth. In keeping with the latter, the following clari- 
fying paragraphs are in order: 


(1) Instincts, emotions, and habits become quite thoroughly 
consolidated and integrated both before and during adolescence. 
A typical case may be cited as anger, where is seen not only the 
tendency to fight (instinct) and to be angry (emotion), but also the 
learned technique of prize-fighting (if the fighting is of the overt 
physical type), as well as all the dozens of other learned (mental) 
ways — argument, bluffing, arbitration, swearing, etc. — the in- 


EMOTION AND THE ADOLESCENT 109 


dividual may employ in lieu of making the physical attack. At- 
titudes are primarily the combination of these unlearned and 
learned reactions, and such popular expressions as “‘lovesick,”’ 
“lovelorn,” ‘“‘embarrassment,” “‘jealousy,” etc., point out the in- 
dividual’s consolidation to date of his related emotional, instinc- 
tive, and habitual powers, and suggest the deeply rooted réle for 
good or ill the attitudes cannot help but play in one’s life. 

(2) Viewed more as phenomena of consciousness, the adolescent’s 
emotional life is showing a remarkable compounding and sys- 
tematizing of simple, primary emotions around some object or core 
competent to excite them. McDougall speaks of these organized 
and relatively permanent systems of emotional dispositions cen- 
tered about the idea of some object as the sentvments, and properly 
emphasizes that, without the growth and final attainment of senti- 
ments, one’s emotional life would be chaos and his social relations 
and conduct unstable. This compounding through having the 
primary emotions (p. 57) brought into consciousness time after 
time, as the teacher “‘stages” the situation to call them forth (as is 
done, of course, through literature, music, art, religious instruction, 
history, etc., as well as giving opportunity for the parallel instinct 
to act), together with the way the rest of the world provides oppor- 
tunity, both good and bad, for emotional organizations to get built 
up through experience, suggests the essential psychology of the real 
and pseudo-sentimental (attitudinal) states of mind so typical of 
the adolescent. Here may be mentioned such compoundings as 
admiration, awe, reverence, gratitude, scorn, fascination, envy, re- 
proach, anxiety, jealousy, resentment, vengeance, shame, bashful- 
ness, joy, sorrow, pity, happiness, sympathy, love, hate, and re- 
spect (see McDougall). 

(3) The integrations and compoundings mentioned above, while 
often seemingly complete and set, are essentially very much still in 
the making, hence much of the deficiencies in steadiness and con- 
sistency, as well as the heights and depths of feeling states charac- 
teristic of many adolescents. Final systematization and the fur- 
ther development of rational powers doubtless will characterize 
the later stages of adolescence and manhood. 

(4) The so-called repressions of emotions,! emphasizing the 





1 See the discussion of Freud and his theories in Chapter XI of this book, 
“Disturbance of Adolescent Personality.”’ 


110 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


methodology of thwarting normal emotional arousements (notably 
sexual in character) by relegating them to the “subconscious,” 
from which they return in disguise to give all sorts of nervous and 
mental trouble to the patient, probably add little new to the 
psychology stated for habit in relation to instinct; taken in con- 
junction with “1” and “‘2” above, it may be suggested that much 
of the supposedly repressed emotions quite normally enter into, or 
drain off into, the formation of the sentiments (for example, sex- 
love entering into a love of the beautiful in art, or an ideal char- 
acter, or the Christ) in a way of reassociation or conditioning entirely 
natural to the psychology of learning. 

(5) The conditioning of an emotional response by a stimulus not 
original for such is perhaps the most demonstrable and significant 
principle having to do with the adolescent’s emotions. We have 
already commented upon the conditioned emotional reactions of 
fear, as shown by fear of the dark, graveyards, failure in class, or 
eternal punishment after death. In the same way, the attach- 
ments of anger or rage doubtless get joined to a certain person, 
even to a person resembling the immediate recipient of one’s 
hostility, perhaps even as righteous indignation to classroom dis- 
honesty, or as hostility to the authorities of the school, hatred of 
a rival church, club, or even political party. In the love situation, 
perhaps this psychology of the transferred or conditioned reflex is 
basic to all the secondary sex characters and to such profusions of 
everyday observation as the maternal affection a teacher occasion- 
ally showers upon a pupil, or a love-lorn swain bringing his emo- 
tional gifts to the younger brother of his adored one, or even to the 
handkerchief the adored one has dropped or the faded flower he is 
treasuring as her gift. In short, it scarcely could be otherwise, for 
it seems “safe to say that when an emotionally exciting object 
stimulates the subject simultaneously with one not emotionally 
exciting, the latter may in time (often after one such joint stimula- 
tion) arouse the same emotional reaction as the former.” 

(6) In addition to the attachments and detachments effected by 
the conditioned reflex, though perhaps neurally akin, a principle of 
diffusion operates. The adolescent, perhaps even more than the 
child, certainly more than the adult with his systematized feeling 
and volitional life, has to seek an emotional outlet in irrational and 
disconnected responses whenever emotional expression is blocked. 


EMOTION AND THE ADOLESCENT 111 


Mlustrations without limit suggest themselves, for example, where 
one takes out his rage upon his younger brother, or perhaps “works 
off” his wrath in rigorous physical exertion, or diffuses his wealth of 
feeling by literally “‘loving everybody.” Such diffusions, analo- 
gous to the random, spontaneous activity basic to learning, may 
drain off into whatever avenues environmental (social) and hered- 
itary factors make possible; they, together with the conditioned re- 
flexes, the occasionally seen unmodified emotional states, and the 
consolidated states of attitudes and sentiments, summarize quite 
thoroughly the real history of emotional development and its func- 
tioning in adolescence. 


Control of emotional reactions. No debate is necessary to 
show that most of us need to, and do, exercise control over 
our emotional life. Most people have learned the necessity 
of this through such experiences as broken friendships, the 
tragedy of great disappointment, or in the much less serious 
form of disordered digestion, sleeplessness, ete., traceable to 
a too great emotional outburst. From scarcely more than 
cursory observation of a high school group, a teacher experi- 
enced with adolescents can pick out individuals of normal 
emotional adjustment, some quite emotionally unstable, and, 
after some experience with the group, the larger majority 
which, although not perfectly balanced emotionally, have 
worked out such compensations through habit that they 
meet satisfactorily most situations confronting them. 

Two ways are logically open for training the emotions — 
improving the environment and retraining the individual — 
although upon analysis perhaps these reduce to one, that is, 
setting up conditioned responses. Certainly by controlling 
the physical factors of diet, sleep, bodily functioning, etc., 
improved emotional conditions may obtain. By surround- 
ing the individual with worthy associations, socially ap- 


112 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


proved objects and practices, even by parents treating their 
, ofispring in a consistently sane fashion, certain unfavorable 
attitudes (rage, hate, scorn, disdain, etc.) are given little op- 
portunity to get unwisely systematized, assigned, or de- 
tached. Adolescence, in particular, finds the youth reacting 
to an environment largely connected with sex, this being lit- 
erally filled with opportunities conducive to harmful attach- 
ments and poor outlets — illicit acts, lurid stories, loose 
companions, mistaken conceptions regarding birth, etc. 
Here, as never before, is the opportunity given to the parent 
or teacher to get close to the adolescent and help him to 
adjust to the sex situations confronting him. 

The opportunity of the school. The obligation given the 
junior high school to control the youth’s environment, both 
material and immaterial, physical and mental, so that ap- 
propriate ways of responding to a world of reality — with its 
members of the opposite sex, its group relations, its laws, cus- 
toms, duties, skills, knowledge, its data essentially good, the 
beautiful and true, as well as all its evil — are built up, is 
very great; this obligation is matched only by opportunity 
given the truly adolescent school for the formation of at- 
tachments and healthy adjustments largely emotional in 
character. 


EMOTION AND THE ADOLESCENT iis 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


. Cite original illustrations for the consolidation of instinct, emotions, 
and related learned ways of reacting. 

. Analyze the complex states of reverence, scorn, and sympathy, with 
reference to: (a) the simpler emotions; and (b) the knowledge factors 
involved. 

. How real is the fact of suppressing emotions? Attachments and de- 
tachments? Illustrate. 

. How may the junior high school teacher develop a patriotic sentiment 
among her class of Italians? Respect for the rights of others? Be 
specific. 

. Is it correct to paraphrase as follows: ‘‘One learns to feel by doing’’? 
. What should adolescents be taught to do, when feeling like giving way 
to an emotional outburst? Justify the attempt to control. 


CHAPTER IX 
VOLITION AND THE ADOLESCENT 


General psychology of volition. The reader long since has 
come to view the human as a stimulus-response mechanism, 
with the obligation resting upon him to effect all sorts of ad- 
justments to the conditions of life as they present them- 
selves. He has seen that many of these adjustments are of 
the primitive reflexive, instinctive, and emotional types; 
also, that the cognitive and emotional factors of mind come 
to play their important réle in furthering the welfare of the 
‘organism in its physical and social relationships. When one 
attempts to bring the above into perspective and to examine 
adjustment in its entirety, he is concerned with another 
“how” of consciousness — not the “how” of the effective 
life, but how is action in us totality controlled. Volition is the 
capacity to control action. rT a3 

Volition has been a subject with which to conjure for psy- 
chologists, moralists, “quacksters,”’ and others. At times its 
serious quest has led to the attempted isolation through in- 
trospection of a will element, with the hope of securing an- 
other mental element to place side by side with the elemen- 
tal “stuff”? of cognition (sensation and image) and feeling 
(simple affection). Again, effort has been profitably spent 
upon an analysis of the reaction experiment, with the en- 
deavor to describe accurately the antecedents to action, the 
mental factors touching it off and controlling it, the method 
of reporting that the action is in process, etc. Finally, voli- 


rene cat 


VOLITION AND THE ADOLESCENT 115 


tion has at times been thought of in a very strict and narrow 
sense as limited to activity under the complete control and 
direction of the rational powers. Any discussion of volition 
or will as such fails even to be included in several recent 
textbooks on psychology. 

What volition includes. Volition, as a full account of the 
control of action, naturally includes much that has been 
phrased regarding the innate tendencies to action, since voli- 
tional processes depend upon native impulses. Indeed, it is 
true that the development of volition is neither more nor less 
than a process of reducing our impulsesvto order, and that a 
mature character is simply one in which the impulses are 
thus subordinated to some systematized principles.! It 
also properly includes an account of the sensory, ideational, 
attentive, emotional, and interest factors. Finally, it in- 
volves a close-up view of those crises where deliberation and 
choice enter, that is, where will in its narrower meaning 1s 
functioning. Will herein becomes synonymous with the 
whole mind active (Angell), the sum of all the conditions of 
choice (Pillsbury). 

As so phrased, will designates the entire original individ- 
ual inheritance as modified by experience, when applied to 
action. ‘The action chosen may be more instinctive than 
learned, impulsive than shaped by acquired ideals, given 
spontaneous instead of voluntary attention, immediately in- 
teresting rather than remotely so, or dictated by pleasure 
rather than by a sense of duty. In such moments of choice 
no decision-element emerges to throw its weight upon the 
side of the weaker claimant. Decision is dictated by past ex- 

1 Angell, J. R., Psychology, p. 430. (Henry Holt and Company, 1909.) 


116 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


perience. The action chosen is the one proved most success- 
ful in the past, and promising best so far as the individual 
can gauge the future. No will is free — it is bound by the 
inheritance of human nature and the modifications stamped 
upon it by the forces of one’s social and physical environ- 
ment. The power to learn, and the possibilities of reshaping 
the raw material of instinct and emotion until there results 
the consolidations of ideals and attitudes of permanence and 
worth, unite to make the adolescent attain a freedom 
wherein his action springs from the broader field of past ex- 
periences and not from the narrower experiences of the pres- 
ent moment. Then he is free indeed. 

Adolescent volition. In keeping with the tendency to view 
adolescence as the life stage par excellence when reasoning 
makes its appearance, and to consider growth as periodic, it 
is customary to make rather sweeping generalizations re- 
garding will, as in the following stimulating quotation.1 

It is an instructive study to place side by side, for examination 
and comparison, the child, the boy of nine to twelve, the boy of 
thirteen to sixteen, and the youth of seventeen to twenty. From 
the standpoint of the growth of will, they may be described as fol- 
lows: in the child you find instincts and impulses operating with a 
minimum of internal check or control, and with only such external 
control as is able to set up a counter current to the operating im- 
pulse. ‘This external factor exerts its power by offering something 
that appeals to the instinct of imitation, or gratifies some desire, or 
uses the instrumentality of pain by way of deterrent. Through 
repetition and association, habits of action begin to form, and in the 
next period (nine to twelve) this is perhaps the outstanding fact, 


from the point of view of will-growth. The area of ideation is, of 
course, becoming much enlarged, and whole new orders of ideas are 


1 Tracy, F., The Psychology of Adolescence, pp. 109-11. (The Macmillan 
Company, 1920.) Reprinted with permission. 


VOLITION AND THE ADOLESCENT 117 


coming into active relation to the motor equipment. It is also true 
that progress is made in the direction of independence and au- 
tonomy of will. But after all, the consolidation of the motor 
mechanism in the way of habit-formation is the most conspicuous 
feature of the period. 

In the adolescent period, while habit-forming continues, along 
with practically all the other characteristics of the previous periods, 
the transference of control from without to within undergoes a 
marked acceleration. And yet this control is by no means securely 
achieved in the first half of this period (thirteen to sixteen). As we 
have said, equilibrium is unstable. Feeling is prone to be tumul- 
tuous and riotous. Quiet, painstaking thought is noteasy. There 
is much capriciousness of moods and fancies. As Sir W. Robertson 
Nicoll remarks, “at fourteen the insurgent years begin.” The 
young adolescent scarcely has himself well in hand. In the latter 
half of the period (seventeen to twenty) most young peoplé give 
distinct evidence that the motor machinery is becoming more reg- 
ulated, and is under more effectual government. Thought is be- 
ginning to overtake feeling. Action is less frequently the outcome 
of impulse, and more frequently the outcome of deliberation. The 
higher centers of ideation-are involved in the responses of the in- 
dividual to the impressions that come into his consciousness. Im- 
pression issues in expression, neither so directly on the sensori- 
motor reflex level, as in the child, nor so largely in the way of habit- 
ual reaction, as in the boy, nor as the direct result of feeling, as in 
the adolescent of the early period. Action from motives, in the 
strict sense of that term, takes place more commonly than at any 
previous time in the life. And with the full attainment of this con- 
dition all the elements that enter into the character of maturity are 
already present. The difference between maturity and immatur- 
ity is a difference of degree. In no moral child is the element of 
inner control entirely wanting; and in no adult is that control 
absolutely constant, reliable, and complete. But all through the 
teens there is going on a great training in self-mastery. And if 
that self-mastery is not achieved by the end of this period, at least 
in such measure as to ensure a strong and well-poised manhood, the 
fault probably lies, either in some defective condition of mind or 
body, or in some failure of the educational process. ‘“‘Spoilea 
children” are well named; for, in their case, through the lack of ex- 


118 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


ternal control in the early years, the capacity for internal control 
has been dwarfed at the outset, and the whole plan of life marred 
and spoiled. 


In so far as adolescence is a period where action is ““more 
frequently the outcome of deliberation”? than otherwise, it 
must be explained not in terms of some newly found gift of 
willing, but rather as natural reactions to the wider prob- 
lems confronting one, made possible by the old primitive 
impulses now controlled, systematized, and shaped in keep- 
ing with the habits and ideals acquired through experience. 

Adolescent ideals. Little data have been secured scientif- 
ically to show the range and strength of adolescent ideals. 
The usual questionnaires have commonly asked high school 
pupils to state whom they would most like to resemble when 
they become grown, or to give their vocational choice. Al- 
though the day of such methodology is happily passing, the 
summary of such investigations as Whipple considered offers 
both historic and guidance values: ! 


(1) Ideals depend on age. Despite some individual variations, 
there is a well-defined trend of development in ideals from child- 
hood to maturity. Curves may be plotted, then, to show the rise 
of this or that ideal. Younger children mention always persons in 
their own family or in their immediate circle of acquaintances, and 
are impressed with objective values — wealth, beauty, social 
station, material possessions, ete. At puberty there occurs a 
marked widening of the range of ideals: historic characters, public 
personages, characters in fiction, and even imaginary persons re- 
place the members of the family circle, while intellectual, esthetic, 
moral, and religious values are substituted for the more material 
values of childhood. Moreover, ideals are evidently more vital and 


1 Whipple, G. M., in Monroe, Principles of Secondary Education, pp. 289= 
92. (The Macmillan Company, 1916.) Reprinted with permission. 


VOLITION AND THE ADOLESCENT 119 


dynamic, more effective in motivating conduct in adolescence than 
in childhood. 

(2) Ideals depend on sex. The range of ideals has always been 
found more restricted in girls than in boys. That is, girls tend 
more strongly to select ideals from their immediate environment, 
and share less than do boys in the broadening of the scope of ideals 
at adolescence. Of special interest is the circumstance that whereas 
boys only rarely list women as their ideals, many girls, nearly fifty 
per cent in fact, find their ideal persons in the opposite sex — a 
condition of affairs that seems particularly unfortunate for young 
girls at this time when ideals of womanhood should normally be 
developing. Here is an opportunity for women teachers to come 
to the rescue of their sex. In the lists of favored occupations, 
teaching is most favored by girls, with nursing, dressmaking, and 
millinery frequently cited; boys are somewhat more apt to be 
animated by money-making motives. 

(3) Ideals depend on home life and social station. The children of 
the poor have relatively simple and ‘low’ ideals, and look forward, 
according to Thurber, to a life of hard work, with little pleasure. 

(4) Ideals depend on type of school instruction. ‘This assertion 
is an inference, however, from the fact that English and especially 
American children decidedly surpass German children in the range 
and variety of their ideals. It is possible that this outcome is due 
to racial or temperamental differences, but Neumann believes that 
it points to fundamental differences in school instruction. German 
pedagogy lays too great stress on mere intellectual acquisition, too 
little on the cultivation of personality. If this be granted, it fol- 
lows that it is highly important to give systematic and definite at- 
tention in the school to the inculcation of ideals. In Germany, 
where formal instruction in religion and religious history is prom- 
inent, it appears that this part of the teaching has little effect upon 
ideals, whereas instruction in secular history, literature, and poetry 
is much more potent. 

(5) The variety of occupational ideals is surprisingly great. One 
might suppose that certain careers would be singled out as ideal by 
nearly all pupils. But in some 1200 answers to the question: 
“What would you most like to be in an imaginary new city?” — 
114 different occupations were specified. 

(6) Their alierations. Since ideals tend to change, and to change 


120 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


with special rapidity at adolescence, it is usually unfortunate if the 
process is prematurely arrested. Thus, a lad of 18 who aspires to be 
a lawyer and an orator, had at 16 an ambition to be “a pugilist and 
all-round sport.” Had his teachers and parents not carried him 
past this earlier ideal, the results may well have been disastrous. 

(7) Over-ambitious tdeals. In many adolescents ideals are curi- 
ously and excessively ambitious and impossible of realization. 
Through them runs, so often, a social and ethical vein which impels 
their possessor toward philanthropic and humanitarian projects. 
A school teacher of the writer’s acquaintance summed up her ado- 
lescent ambitions in this interesting and characteristic series: “To 
be the protector of unhappy women, to write the history of the 
world, to write novels as great as Victor Hugo’s, to be an actress, to 
reform society, to uplift the degraded.’ Given such adolescent 
yearnings in minds of great natures, of true geniuses, they may, 
indeed, be realized, as the biographies of Joan of Arc, Savonarola, 
Lafayette, and George Eliot bear witness. Given such yearnings 
in mediocre and inferior, but persistent minds, and pathetic failure 
is the consequence. High school and college teachers will recognize 
readily enough this top-heavy combination of high ambition and 
poor ability.! 


Adolescent ambition, interests, and intelligence. The re- 
lation between vocational ambition and the intelligence rat- 
ing of 930 high school pupils was reported upon in the Atlan- 
tic City conference on Vocational Education, in 1921 (see 
Table VIII). When one recalls the intelligence scores made 
by the large occupational groups of the American Army as 
presumably typical for the amount of intelligence required 
for success in a particular occupation,” he is forced to con- 
clude the following regarding the vocational ambitions of 
adolescents: (1) Pupils of mediocre mentality share freely 

1 The reader should here remember the psychological analysis of the atti- 
tudes, sentiments, and ideals as made in Chapter VIII. 


2 Yoakum, C. S., and Yerkes, R. M., Army and Mental Tests, p. 198. 
(Henry Holt and Company, 1920.) 


VOLITION AND THE ADOLESCENT 121 


Taste VIII. RELATION BETWEEN VOCATIONAL AMBITION AND 
INTELLIGENCE RATING on ARMY SCALE 
(930 high school pupils) 


Ratina on Army INTELLIGENCE SCALE 


CHOICE ToTALs 
Alpha 25-44 | 45-74 |'75-104 | 105-134 | 135 or over 
A and B | 25-49 | 50-84 | 85-119 | 120-154 | 155 or over 


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pd 
COM eet RO ee Hote 


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SECT RO Ett lI HY 
~~ 
— 


=n) 

—_ 

— 
mt oO 


Actress 
Agriculture 
Architect 

Army and Navy... 
Artistic career 
Auto mechanic.... 
AWIALOLEs Aes 
Bacteriologist 
Bookkeeper 
Business manager.. 
Civil service 

Clerk (store) 
Contractor 

Dancer (Asthetic). 
Druggist 
Electrician 
el 

Home maker...... 
Journalist......... 
L: . 

SS (trs)eriace 
Sea captain 

Social service 
Stenographer Q 
Teacher 

Writer 


49 288 
5.2 31.0 43.6 


Interpretation of army ratings: = very superior; B = superior; C+ = above average; 
C= eA C— = below average. 





122 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


with superior intellects in having an interest in, and choice 
for, a certain vocation. (2) Pupils of superior mentality 
often show an ambition to enter a calling making an intel- 
ligence demand far beneath their supply (for example, ste- 
nographer), and mediocrity of intelligence may aim higher 
than seems justifiable (teacher). ‘These facts are, of course, 
inconclusive, either for the range of adolescent interests or 
for adolescent ability to choose the calling fairly appropriate 
to the mentality of the chooser. Taken in conjunction with 
all other such data, notably those of Book,! the irrationality 
of adolescent choice is shown, as well as the need pointed out 
for the expert guidance and counselling so fundamental in a 
junior high school that is really functioning. 

Adolescent traits in their volitional relationship. Some 
light has been thrown upon the relationship between intelli- 
gence and leadership by the studies of Terman and Proctor, 
Bennett, and the army results. The first deals primarily 
with first-grade children; the second with adolescent boys in 
a vocational high school; the third, of course, with adult 
men. All point to the general conclusion that intelligence 
correlates positively and significantly with volitional powers, 
as expressed in initiative and leadership and acting in a man- 
ner acceptable to one’s fellows. ‘The fact that the correla- 
tions shown are not high (never reaching .50) suggests that 
many pupils of high general intelligence either have not the 
capacity for leadership, or else have not had the opportunity 
provided for such; also, that certain leaders may be medio- 
cre in intelligence but strongly possessing compensating 


1 Book, W. F., The Intelligence of High School Seniors, pp. 139-42. (The 
Macmillan Company, 1922.) 


VOLITION AND THE ADOLESCENT 123 


traits of personality, will, etc. The educational problems 
are clear — to provide opportunity for intelligent youth to 
secure experience as social leaders, and to place a proper 
check upon the leadership of ignorance. 

Downey seems to be making good progress in measuring 


Speed of Movement VI-1 
Freedom from Lozd atte A 
Flexibility VIII 

Speed of Decision I 

Motor Impulsion X 

Reaction to Contradiction XI 
Resistance to Opposition XII 
Finality of Judgment XIII 
Motor Inhibition VII 


Interest in Detail IX 


Coordination of Impulses V 





Volitional Perseveration 
Ill-2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 


Fic. 4. Caart or WILL-PROFILE 
(From Downey’s Manual of Directions for Will-Temperament Test) 


Prorite X. Profile X is that of a man who has held successfully a number of important 
executive positions. He is, in addition, an effective public speaker and possesses great 
dramatic talent. 

His profile suggests, in general, the type of the successful administrator, especially with 
reference to the high scores for speed of decision, finality of judgment, freedom from load, 
resistance to opposition, and motor impulsion in conjunction with high motor inhibition. 

The high score for flexibility and the medium one on reaction to contradiction (tactful 
response) indicate social pliability and suggestibility which increase X’s social assets, but 
are of dubious value in his business life. 

The low score on interest in detail is not a serious defect, since X is in a position to turn 
over to subordinates the execution of many of his projects. It goes, however, with a 
tendency to generalize on insufficient grounds. The low score on volitional perseveration 
is probably a real weakness, although X’s dramatic gift makes it possible for him to achieve 
through imitation what others work out through prolonged trial and error. 


1% PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


certain factors strongly tied up with will and personality. 
Her Will-Temperament Test undertakes to furnish a will- 
profile, showing twelve specific traits, read mainly from the 
subject’s handwriting. A typical profile is shown in Figure 
4, together with the significance of the rating given in each of 
the traits. Noonecan state now how much Downey’s meth- 
ods surpass the “ get-rich-quick” procedures of certain noted 
character analysts; 1t seems reasonable to expect that she is 
making a real and much-needed contribution to psychology, 
and that some such objective measures of certain volitional 
or dynamic traits will offer much assistance to the junior 
high school teacher in her endeavor first to predict, and then 
to control the behavior of the adolescent. 

Adolescence and the training of will. Much nonsense 
continues to be produced regarding the training of the will, 
just as though the individual were competent to call forth a 
will element occasionally and, by giving it proper exercise, 
become thoroughly trained volitionally. Not that will, be it 
ever so narrowly envisaged and defined, cannot or is not be- 
ing trained, not only in the adolescent period but by each 
act of life from infancy to senility. For training the will is, 
as has so often and so necessarily been stated, synonymous 
to training the entire individual. In confronting the youth 
with situations requiring him to learn and form new habitual 
modes of adjustment; in providing him with such an environ- 
ment, both material and immaterial, that proper sentiments 
and ideals naturally are built up; finally in giving full oppor- 
tunity for the proper habits and ideals to enter into the con- 
trol of conduct, with unpleasant results following in case of 
failure — these state practically all the school or any other in- 


VOLITION AND THE ADOLESCENT 125 


stitution can do for the training of the will. Naturally, they 
add nothing to earlier formulations, for will, as the entire 
mind in action, involves nothing beyond the dualism upon 
which all response depends — the inheritance of human na- 
ture and the modifications secured through individual exper- 
ience. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. Is seeming suppression of impulses based upon the expression of other 
impulses, and not upon sheer brute repression? To root out a bad 
impulse, must we set some contrary impulse to work? Relate to some 
practical adolescent case. 

2. In judging character, is the only person altogether reliable morally the 
one who has been really tempted and tried? 

8. What are the sources of moral influence on the part of the teacher of 
adolescents? 

4. How would you set about to develop initiative in a fourteen-year-old 
girl, naturally shy and retiring? 

5. List typical junior high school procedures — for example, socialized 
recitation, or training to study, and scrutinize with reference to the 
training furnished in the respective fields of knowing, feeling, and will- 
ing. 

6. Where do adolescent interest and desire relate to volition, as defined 
and treated? 


SELECTED REFERENCES FOR PART III 


Angell, J. R. Psychology, chaps. xx and xxm. (1908.) 

Book, W. F. The Intelligence of High School Seniors. (1922.) 
Cannon, W. B. Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage. (1915.) 
Downey, J. The Will Temperament and Its Testing. (1921.) 
Hines, H.C. Measuring Intelligence. (1923.) 

McDougall, W. Social Psychology. (1912.) 

Stenquist, J. L. Measurements of Mechanical Ability. (1923.) 
Terman, L.M. The Intelligence of School Children. (1919.) 
The Measurement of Intelligence. (1916.) 

Tracy, F. The Psychology of Adolescence. (1920.) 

Watson, J. B. Psychology, chaps. v and vi. (1919.) 
Woodworth, R.S. Psychology, chap xx. (1921.) 


PART IV 
PERSONALITY IN ADOLESCENCE 


CHAPTER X 


THE NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF ADOLESCENT 
PERSONALITY 

The meaning of personality. Personality, character, the 
self — here the reader comes to see the organism in its total- 
ity as a stimulus-response mechanism. Striven as the 
writer has to keep reflex, instinct, emotion and habit, know- 
ing and volition, even consciousness and all the rest of the 
mental processes unified and interrelated, his method has 
been piecemeal. Turning attention away from the func- 
tionings of these fairly individual reaction-systems, and 
viewing the adolescent as an integrated being (as was exactly 
the point of view just developed for “will’’), it becomes 
timely to raise such questions as how does this psychophysi- 
cal organism work as a whole, how does he behave under rad- 
ically new conditions, what are his more salient features of 
character, and how may these become disturbed or re- 
shaped? These are some of the major questions relating to 
personality — the individual’s power of total response to the 
situations confronting him. 

The term “character” suggests the individual’s way of re- 
sponding to the socially endorsed construction of society — 
its laws, customs, morals, conventionalities, etc. It and 
morality in general well may be left for the moralist to dis- 


ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY 127 


cuss. The “self,” as such, suggests such discussions as the 
consciousness of personal identity, the subject-object nature 
of consciousness, and the various “selfs”? — the Empirical 
Self or Me, Social, Spiritual, the Pure Ego, etc. — so remi- 
niscent of the great philosopher, William James. But these 
may be left mainly to the philosopher, while the psychologist 
remains content with his task of treating the personality — 
the total potentiality of response an individual possesses for 
meeting life situations. 

Any person feels competent to speak accurately of an- 
other’s personality, yet scarcely any two would agree upon 
the factors they are rating. Certainly such factors as phy- 
sique, temperament, instinctive tendencies, and intelligence 
enter in as factors in personality, but few judges carry their 
every-day evaluations of the other person to even such a 
rough degree as these four terms suggest; rather, qualifying 
and unanalyzable expressions are employed — “her person- 
ality is dazzling,” “he is so compelling,” as well as overpow- 
ering, freezing, magnetic, commanding, depressing, pleasing, 
etc. This is the best the average person can do, for he is not 
schooled to think of the individual as having all the determ- 
inants of action within him, and of these being reducible to 
the few simple and analyzable factors of activity so often 
mentioned in the preceding pages. 

The study of personality. The systematic study of per- 
sonality offers a great field of research for the student of 
adolescence, especially so as he has long since been taught 
that new personality-traits emerge, and that the personality 
becomes “set” through the adolescent period. Watson has 
suggested a questioning technique calculated to yield con- 


128 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


crete and studiable factors, basic for any personality judg- 
ments, whether practical or scientific in character. He pro- 
poses ! definite questions along the following lines: 

(1) General Level of Behavior; for example, how well does 
the subject respond to such measures as range of information, 
vocabulary, use of English? 

(2) General Survey of Instinctive and Emotional Equip- 
ment and Attitude; for example, how many infantile reac- 
tions and attitudes have been carried over into adult life, 
such as biting the nails, playing with the mouth and face, 
and spitting? 

(3) General Habits of Work; for example, does he com- 
plete work undertaken promptly and neatly, or is he a pro- 
crastinator, a maker of excuses, and in general a tempera- 
mental worker? 

(4) Activity Level; for example, can he put his work aside 
or must he take it with him, conversationally at least, into 
his social life and moments of recreation? 

(5) Social Adaptability; for example, how would you 
rate him with respect to tactfulness, quarrelsomeness, 
coéperation? 

(6) Recreation and Sports; for example, are there special 
forms of play, especially of chance, such as cards and rou- 
lette, which amount to obsessions and toward which he dis- 
plays a lack of balance? 

(7) Organized Sex Life; for example, has he a tendency to 
talk too freely about his sex experiences, or to avoid refer- 
ences to this phase of his life or to certain periods of it? 


1 Watson, J. B., Psychology, pp. 399-404. (J. B. Lippincott Company, 
1919.) 


ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY 129 


(8) Reactions to Conventional Standards; for example, is 
he truthful, faithful to his work, and careful of the rights 
and reputation of others? 

(9) Personal Bias and Peculiarities; for example, has the 
early petting or cruelty he has received at the hands of in- 
terested individuals made him boastful, timid, proud, over- 
bearing; or is he generally balanced in these respects? 

(10) Balancing Factors; for example, have religion and 
church work been for him a balancing factor — one upon 
which he loads responsibility and from which he receives 
authority, and by means of which he obtains surcease from 
emotional strain in times of trouble? 

The inquiries of Watson, Woodworth, and others show 
how penetrating the questions put to the individual, as well 
as the impersonal observations made about his regular rou- 
tine conduct, must be if the inquirer is really to know his sub- 
ject’s personality. Of course the thoroughness of the analy- 
sis must depend upon the individual case; for a real psycho- 
pathic adolescent no analysis could be too minute. Perhaps 
it is not inaccurate to state that the sanely-minded junior 
high school teacher can, through careful and friendly inquiry 
made upon the student who is finding great difficulty in “‘fit- 
ting in,” use profitably a technique not properly preémpted 
by the psychiatrist. Only by employing such objective 
measures as really come to grips with the reacting powers of 
the youth will one come to know in essential detail the facts 
of his character, and herein avoid the snap and inaccurate 
judgments all of us are so prone to make. The depths of 
human conduct are almost immeasurable, even though the 
foregoing chapters have no doubt seemed to make the pat- 


130 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


tern of conduct simple. No “get-rich-quick” methods of 
rating adolescent personality exist, irrespective of whether 
such schemes involve the square chin, complexion, high fore- 
head, scowling brows, erect posture, width between the eyes, 
contour of face, size of hands, or even flatness of nose. Even 
the magical contents of the psychologist’s portfolio succeed 
in furnishing evidence of but a segment of personality. 
Hard as it may be to secure, just such thorough knowledge of 
personality the teacher and parent, occasionally the physi- 
cian, must possess if they are to handle successfully those 
harder cases of adolescent maladjustment often presenting 
themselves. 

Personality and school conduct. Several studies well may 
be mentioned as throwing considerable light upon aberrant 
types of adolescents: 

1. Cases of junior high school discipline. Teachers of a 
small junior high school ! were asked to pick out all pupils 
they considered to constitute disciplinary problems. The 
twenty pupils most frequently nominated were subjected 
to detailed investigation. Each teacher reported independ- 
ently regarding the items of conduct she considered repri- 
mandable. The total list of faults makes an illuminating 
and a very practical commentary upon adolescent person- 
ality: impudent, untrustworthy, whisperer, talks too much, 
giggles, uses smutty words, disturbs others, too amorous, 
mischievous, influenced too easily, posing, lounges in seat, 
loafs at work, acts babyish, thinks he’s handsome, lazy, 
noisy, tries to be cute, disobedicnt, lawless, bluffer, draws 


1 Fuson, H. H., from an unpublished research upon the Covington, Kene 
tucky, Junior High School, on file at the University of Cincinnati 


ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY 131 


attention, truant, silly, asks foolish questions, cuts periods, 
surly, smokes, frivolous, careless with books, loud laughing, 
member of gang, indifferent, irrepressible, bad study habits, 
thinks he’s intelligent, exaggerated idea of own importance, 
dodges work, idles, mutters, rude, trifling, “Smart Alec,” 
and paints and powders excessively. Data were secured, for 
the twenty disciplinary cases, regarding chronological and 
mental age, number of years spent in the present school, 


TaBLe [X. Snowrne Various Ratines or Purits LIsteD As 
DISCIPLINARY CASES 


AVER- No. 
AGE De-| Non- 
port- | Promo- 
TIONS 


CHRONO- Moret YEARS 
GRADE} LOGICAL IN THE 
SCHOOL 


Home 
HeattnH! Conopr- 


2 
1 
2 
2 
2 
L 
2 
L 
2 
L 
2 
iL 
2 
1 
2 
L 
2 
L 
2 


1 
0 
5 
8 
3 
7 


ws ie2) 
bol bo bale! 
WOH AIHOHWOCKHH OCH HORM OOKED 


AAMAAAAMAAAAAAQANM AA! da 
DAORBFEOOMAswWoOmMawwoaws 





number of promotions and non-promotions to date, etc., as 
shown in Table LX. Interesting and significant deductions 
may be made as follows: 


1382 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


(a) Disciplinary cases among junior high school pupils 
show, almost without exception, a bad non-promotion rec- 
ord before entering the junior high school. 

(b) Misconduct is not the exception, as witnessed by the 
large number of items reported. 

(c) Although the data were inconclusive, there is no guar- 
antee that the bad pupil is necessarily feeble-minded, over- 
age, poor in health, or comes from bad home conditions. 

2. Diagnosis and treatment of school failures. Woolley and 
Ferris ! have recently shown, after a long period spent in 
studying school failures among young children especially, 
that the failures can be grouped according to the dominant 
cause of the difficulty, as follows: (a) Children who were 
neglected especially at home; (b) high-grade defectives, 
though their intelligence quotients were still above the usu- 
ally accepted limits for defects; (c) those with special de- 
fects which seemed to make the acquisition of a given type 
of knowledge unusually difficult; and finally, (d) the psycho- 
pathic. With reference to the general mental tone and 
attitude of the pupil, they point out the weighty consider- 
ation necessary to give to: (a) mental distraction due to 
anxiety, caused by poverty, constant quarreling or immoral 
behavior of parents, divorces, or cruelty to children; (b) 
personal conflict between the child and his parents, or be- 
tween the child and his teachers; (c) obsessions or fears; (d) 
special disabilities; (e) character defects, such as excessive 
shyness or abnormal stubbornness; and (f) psychopathic 
conditions. 


1 Woolley, Helen T., and Ferris, E., Diagnosis and Treatment of Young 
School Failures. (United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin 1, 1923.) 


ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY 133 


Projected against the psychological laws, stated earlier, re- 
garding habit formation in relation to instinct and emotions, 
as well as the facts of “thwarting” so emphatically stated, it 
is easy for the student of adolescent behavior to see how the 
accumulated experience of pre-adolescent life, both in and 
out of school, largely make the adolescent misfit; and to 
agree quite largely with the following conclusion: 

It is not too much to say that if every child could be adequately 
studied and education really adapted to the needs of the individual 
child, most of the problems of vice and crime would disappear. 
Children are spoiled in the making in ways that we see and under- 
stand, and yet at present we stand and look on, powerless to pre- 


vent the havoe, not so much from lack of knowledge as from lack of 
resources. 


3. Magnitude and rate of alleged changes at adolescence. 
The two preceding investigations have tended to show that, 
in so far as adolescence is a period of “storm and stress” as 
reflected in unfortunate school adjustment, the conditioning 
factors lie far back in early school, family, social, and per- 
sonal history. Just how much the adolescent period is truly 
one of radical shake-up for all youth is still open for answer. 
Thorndike has employed the post-mortem questionnaire 
method somewhat more scientifically than earlier investiga- 
tors, and secures findings quite in contradiction to those usu- 
ally phrased.! He concludes as follows: 


It seems, therefore, fair to say that of the twelve matters studied, 
only interest in vocations, friendship, reforming zeal, and love of 
solitude are specially characteristic of adolescence. These have 
their acme at eighteen, twenty, eighteen, and eighteen. ‘The max- 
imum of selfishness comes before and that for unselfishness comes 


LE Cae OTS NSE SUES, IR NO Ta i eI 
1 Thorndike, E. L., ‘Magnitude and Rate of Alleged Changes at Adoles- 
cence’’; in Educational Review, vol. 54, pp. 140-47. (1917.) 


134 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


after the years from fourteen to twenty-two. So, also, with desire 
to do one’s duty, love of nature, and love of reading. 

We must conclude then that the intellectual and moral picture of 
the high school boy as breaking loose from home allegiance, full of 
vast enthusiasms, perplexed and tender in conscience, and the like, 
is likely to prove truer of the college boy. The picture of these 
changes as occurring so suddenly that the youth is a mystery to 
himself, seems true of no age. 


The general picture presented by the above, and many 
other studies made, suggest what are no doubt the facts: 

(1) A turbulent and cataclasmic career so long deemed po- 
tential for all adolescents is often a matter of exaggeration. 

(2) Aberrant cases frequently occur in school, the condi- 
tioning factors generally antedating adolescence and being 
largely preventable. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. Select twelve acquaintances, and rank them with respect to the posses- 
sion of a good personality, and analyze the real factors entering into 
your judgment. 

. May personality be dissected, as suggested in this chapter? 

. What is meant by training for the development of one’s personality? 

. Attempt to verify, m your own experience, the conclusions reached by 
Thorndike regarding the alleged shake-up of adolescent character. 

5. Select a case of high school discipline, and see to what degree the fac- 
tors conditioning it: (a) antedated adolescence; and (b) were prevent- 
able. 

6. May personality, as the 1.Q., be thought of as remaining constant from 
year to year? 


i 09 


CHAPTER XI 
DISTURBANCE OF ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY 


It has been shown that adolescence is a period of complexity, 
instability, and variability, and that, while perhaps the 
large majority make the shift from boyhood to youth with- 
out passing through a period of “storm and stress” reaching 
down to the basic fundamentals of character and conduct, 
pathological conditions often appear and radical disturb- 
ances in conduct result. 


1. Pathology of adolescent mentality 


The mental diseases of adolescence present an interesting, 
even though an unhappy and incompletely drawn picture. 
Certain conditions and major types may well be commented 
upon. 

Amentia versus dementia. Comment has already been 
made upon the fact that approximately the 144 year marks 
the average maturity of general intelligence; also, that a 
large number of individuals have reached the maximum of 
mental growth before this age for average maturing. The 
term “amentia’’ suggests this failure to develop, generally 
from birth on, and hence the picture presented is that of 
arrested development. The terms ‘“‘feeble-mindedness,” 
“idiocy,” “imbecility,” “moronity,” “low I.Q.,” “‘mental 
retardation,” etc., suggest the typical condition connoted 
by amentia — the individual has had little or no mind with 
which to start. 


33 ¢é 


136 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


Dementia literally means a subtraction from a mentality 
apparently normal up to the time of arrest. While dementia 
may presumably be expected during senility, its occurrence 
at an earlier period, especially during adolescence, marks it 
as a pathological condition of major importance. ‘This pre- 
cocious dementia (dementia precox) constitutes the most 
serious psychosis to which adolescence is liable. 

Organic versus functional diseases. Advanced students 
of adolescent pathology seem to be having marked success in 
correlating the several types of mental disability — amentia 
as well as the insanities — with definite organic conditions, 
the general tendency being to postulate that no abnormality 
of mental functioning appears without some pronounced 
physical condition. So much is known regarding certain 
diseased conditions of brain structure sometimes present 
even at birth, toxic conditions acquirable, improper structure 
and functioning of certain endocrine glands, etc., as well as 
malnutritive conditions of nerve cells otherwise normal 
as to lead the student to think of mental abnormalities as 
closely related to definite organic conditions. On the other 
hand, it is hard to “run to earth” as yet certain adolescent 
mal-functionings for which there can be demonstrated no 
pronounced lesion. Here may profitably be mentioned 
dementia precox, hysteria, adolescent phobias, all sorts of 
automatisms and habit faults — all of which could be much 
easier eradicated were there some known and remediable 
organic basis. 

Major types of adolescent pathology. We shall mention 
here the more important types of mental pathology of ado- 
lescence: 


DISTURBANCE OF PERSONALITY 137 


(1) Dementia precox. This is peculiar to youth, and is a 
slow decline of mental strength through a gradual weaken- 
ing, primarily of the volitional and emotional life. It sug- 
gests an incapacity to make a reconstruction of attitudes, in- 
terests, and ideals so necessary, and generally quite normal 
for adolescence. It shows little relation to intelligence, as 
the disease often attacks adolescents of marked intelligence 
and promise.!_ While most frequent for later adolescence, 
the condition may appear at any time during the period. 
The symptoms may be varied — persistent lack of interest, 
listlessness, unwillingness to engage in normal physical and 
intellectual activity, day-dreaming, as well as pronounced 
“attacks,” such as maniacal excitement, melancholic frenzy 
and depression, catatonic (bodily rigidity), stupor, mentally 
confused, delusional, and hallucinational. Periods of 
marked improvement are generally followed by subsequent 
attacks, until finally permanent degeneration and disorgani- 
zation of mentality results. 

The sources of dementia precox are quite likely to be 
found in the unusually rapid growth activities of adoles- 
cence, special temperamental make-up of certain individuals, 
pre-adolescent training, perhaps in some instances a disease- 
heredity. Precipitating causes are for the most part those 
of exhausting influences, both of mental and physical strain, 
although a small proportion of cases occur in the physically 
strong and apparently stable and socially inclined. 

(2) Hysterias suggest a functional disorder occasionally 


1 See Stedman, H.R., Mental Pitfalls of Adolescence (Massachusetts Soci- 
ety for Mental Hygiene, Publication no. 22), for a thorough discussion of 
dementia precox. 


1388 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


prominent in adolescence. In a certain sense this type con- 
trasts with dementia przecox, as the former generally is — 
characteristically of an extreme emotional tone, while in the 
latter an almost total annihilation of both the emotional and 
volitional life may appear. Hysteria may be characterized 
by general mental changes, anzsthesias, paralyses, contrac- 
tures, a vast complex of visceral disturbances, hence fre- 
quently simulating organic disease. Age is an etiological 
factor, as shown by the following for a large number of cases 
investigated: 1-10 years, 8 per cent; 10-20 years, 50 per 
cent; 20-30 years, 28 per cent; 30-40 years, 10 per cent; 40— 
50 years, 3 per cent; 50-60 years, 1 per cent. The female 
sex is more frequently affected than the male (20:1), and 
hysteria is often considered as resulting from mental de- 
rangement of the sexual life (hence the Greek “hysteron”’ — 
womb, uterus). The symptoms may be general; for exam- 
ple, inability to control temper, and susceptibility to tem- 
per, tears, laughter, or extreme self-consciousness. Special 
symptoms may involve a hyperacuity of the senses, com- 
plete loss of sensations, narrowing of vision, anzsthesias not 
following the distribution of the sensory nerve, paralyses not 
producing the atrophy characteristic for the organic types, 
tics, convulsive seizures of great violence (hystero-epilepsy), 
even at times a specific dissociation of a body of mental con- 
tent from the parent mass of mental experience. This last 
symptom suggests the entire psychology of dissociated con- 
sciousness, cut-off and alternating personality, suppressions 
to the subconscious, etc., later involved in a discussion of 
Freudian psychology. 

To theorize regarding the hysterical conditions to which 


DISTURBANCE OF PERSONALITY 139 


the adolescent seems potential offers interesting speculation. 
Janet holds that the hysterical subject has, owing to some in- 
trinsic neural instability, narrowed his field of consciousness 
in a way analogous to its narrowing in hypnotism; that, un- 
der this condition, the subject doesn’t think of the other 
items of his experiences. Freud would emphasize that the 
hysterical symptom is a memory symbol of certain trau- 
matic (psychic shock) impressions and experiences; the ex- 
pression of a sexual phantasy and a substituting wish-fulfill- 
ment for sexual gratification; that the symptom arises from 
a compromise between the sexual impulse and social, ethical, 
‘and esthetic motives, all working to disguise the true sig- 
nificance of the attack. 

(3) Automatisms carried over from pre-adolescence may 
appear in marked degree. Over a hundred of these nervous 
faults have been catalogued, such as stammering, biting the 
nails, trotting the leg, picking the face, clearing the throat, 
facial gestures, wrinkling the forehead, drawing down the 
mouth, tics, etc. These suggest dissociated activities, pre- 
sumably involving the use of the smaller muscles and indi- 
cating a lack of control and codrdination. In so far as these 
may be the natural results of an unfavorable psychology of 
learning of pre-adolescence — specifically, where the finer ac- 
cessory movements have been kept in the foreground to the 
neglect of the fundamental — it is reasonable to expect that, 
during the rapid adolescent growth of the fundamental 
muscles, the nervous automatisms of pre-adolescence may, 
through adequate educational treatment, receive proper al- 
though delayed organization in the large habitual hierarch- 
ies. In so far as these automatisms, tics, and other mani- 


140 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


festations of nervousness receive correction through such 
incorporation, by the general improvement of the body 
through better habits of eating, sleeping, exercise, etc. — 
perhaps to a degree through elimination of the traumatic 
condition of which they may at times be the survival — 
marked improvement may often be noted; failure herein 
brings the final stage of chorea. 

(4) Fear psychoses occasionally appear to a strong degree 
in adolescence. ‘These often taking a turn dictated by a per- 
verted use of the sex functions. ‘The customary preach- 
ments of elders regarding the dire consequences of such 
abuses, mental as well as physical, often contribute to de- 
velop a condition close to insanity regarding a widespread 
practice at least among adolescent boys. The social frown- 
ing upon the sex life in general has often naturally developed 
untold misery, since the youth in his untutored ignorance 
tries to reconcile his sex impulses, dreams, etc., with fancied 
moral instead of biological principles. The escape mechan- 
isms furnished by religious phenomena and practices, zealous 
social work, etc., are probably at times to be understood best 
in the light of the fears, anxiety neuroses, search for self- 
respect, etc., natural to the adolescent. Instruction in sex 
hygiene has a real mission to perform herein. 

A “storm and stress”? period. The above-mentioned 
types of mental pathology of adolescence go a long way to 
characterize the period. Adolescence demands a radical re- 
construction of interests, attitudes, and desires, as natural 
resultants of the rapidly expanding internal powers of the or- 
ganism and the enlarged environment in which it is forced 
to move. ‘This reconstruction is far more emotional and 


DISTURBANCE OF PERSONALITY 41 


volitional than intellectual, as the analysis of the gross types 
of inability in making adjustments listed above has shown. 
Complete and entirely socially adapted action fails to be at- 
tained, rival instinctive and habitual systems clash, and 
weaknesses of personality, character, and morality emerge 
— all of which lead to characterizing the period as one of 
‘storm and stress.”” ‘The thwartings discussed in an earlier 
chapter find full reference and illustration here. 

The real student of adolescence should give the mental 
pathology of adolescence its full significance, yet without 
blinding himself to the fact that the vast majority of adoles- 
cents, given a sane educational and home environment pre- 
ceding and during the period, reach maturity without en- 
countering the tragic conditions portrayed by this chapter. 
Adolescent insanity, as a more or less prolonged and marked 
departure from the individual’s mode of thinking, feeling, 
and acting, and resulting in a marked lessened capacity for 
adapting to the environment, should be, and generally is 
found to be, the exception rather than the rule. 


2. Adolescent pathology and Freudian psychology 


The reader has gradually become prepared for a discussion 
of Freudian psychology. The réle of the instincts in reac- 
tion and their relation to habit-formation, their control and 
direction; the thwarting, suppression, and conditioning of 
emotional responses and desires; finally, the description fur- 
nished for dementia praecox, hysterias, fears, automatisms, 
etc., have prepared one for a discussion of the subconscious 
mind and a descent into its interesting although at times re- 
pellent depths. A brief statement of the Freudian belief offers 
a field of unlimited interest and explanatory possibilities. 


142 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


The Freudian beliefs. ‘The deeper and most significant 
part of mental life does not consist in the controllable proc- 
esses of consciousness, but rather in the realm of the sub- 
conscious, so one would be led to believe. ‘T'o this zone go all 
ideas when they are not functioning in the focus of conscious- 
ness. Here are relegated not only all stored-up experiences, 
but all suppressed desires, potential incitants to activity, sex 
longings and strivings—in fact, consciousness is a taskmaster 
and permits only a very narrow selection of items to function 
in its limelight. A mental censor is developed through ex- 
perience, and this censor keeps under control all tendencies, 
however natural and normal, from entering into conduct 
which have not become incorporated into the acquirements 
endorsed by the moral, social, religious, and esthetic schema 
of modern life. 

Yet these suppressions do not become frozen, static, or an- 
nihilated. Rather, they live on, grow, integrate, ripen, and 
in due time come back to influence conduct, practically al- 
ways sexual in essence, although generally disguised in sym- 
bolic fashion. In the dream state the censor is absent, so 
this is the period par excellence for suppressed sex desires to 
play their réle, symbolically clad or otherwise, and furnish 
the organism mental, and at times, physiological relief. Or 
to slip by during waking hours, and bring the slip of the 
tongue or the pen, perhaps even to produce a temporary sus- 
pension of conscious control and engage the organism in au- 
tomatic writing or speech. Even to give the flights of fancy, 
inspiration, revelation, productions of art or literature, the 
so-called instantaneous religious conversion, even the hyste- 
rias and alternations of personality — all the end-results of 


DISTURBANCE OF PERSONALITY 143 


subconscious activities largely sexual in character, and now 
sufficiently matured and integrated to affect conduct, either 
directly or indirectly, in natural or symbolic guise. How- 
ever, the submerged “complex” may not be so open in its 
power to influence conduct, but as a complete suppression 
may disturb the normal conduct even to insanity, except 
that through psychoanalysis this submergence — often a 
childish fear or thwarted sex desire —— may be brought to the 
surface, faced in the light of consciousness, tied up with the 
normal life, with the “‘cure”’ resulting. 

Criticism of these beliefs. This statement, homily in 
character, is typical of the average description given to a 
psychological system seeming to offer unlimited values in ex- 
plaining all adolescent phenomena, normal and pathological, 
and even to encourage the setting-up of unsuspected behav- 
ioristic and mental phenomena so they may be explained. 
For Freudian psychology has proved to be averitable Monroe 
Doctrine, and under its explanatory categories its adherents 
easily bring to rest all mental operations, normal no less than 
abnormal. ‘This is not the place to essay a full discussion of 
the psychology of the subconscious — better, the non-con- 
scious — and to bring it into clear perspective with the re- 
maining powers of mind.! It is necessary, however, for the 


1 The writer hopes to publish soon a series of chapters on the Non-Con- 
scious and its Educational Import. Herein will be developed the historical 
background of the conception, and its significance shown not only for the 
typical operations of both the mental and physical life, but also the quite 
typical operations of memory, thought and reasoning, volition, language, 
motor and ideational learning, as well as conduct and morality. The edu- 
cational utilization of the governing laws and principles seems not only pos- 
sible, but extremely valuable. Needless to say, the proposed treatment is 
being developed without making an extravagant borrowing of the far- 
fetched sexualism of the Freudian type. 


144 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL: PUPIL 


reader of these pages to secure the following views, were such 
a discussion made: 

(1) Many human operations daily employed are strictly 
unconscious, and require no extravagant postulation of a 
subconsciousness. 

(2) The phenomena of split-off, secondary, and alternat- 
ing personality, etc., represent the possibilities of neural dis- 
sociation within the elaborate areas of the cerebral cortex, 
and, in the strict terms of psycho-physical parallelism, fur- 
nish the suggestion of two or more streams of consciousness 
flowing simultaneously in the same individual, herein mak- 
ing unnecessary a set-up of the subconsciousness entity. 

(3) The sex instinct does not seem to monopolize all life 
tendencies, as by no stretch of imagination does it seem pos- 
sible to restate fairly certain individualistic and altruistic 
urges in a sexual way. 

(4) Many activities in both the normal and dream con- 
sciousness lack sexual implications. 

(5) Thwarted desires, whether growing out of instinctive 
or habitual tendencies to behavior, rarely become wholly 
suppressed, but return to consciousness again and again un- 
til they can be acted upon. 

(6) Sex urges, or other instinctive urges, suppressed of 
otherwise, play a prominent réle in “short circuiting,” set- 
‘sublimations,” etc., 


4 


ting up conditioned reflexes, effecting 
as developed so fully in the discussion of emotions; but the 
part played is the preliminary one of linking the response to 
the stimulus, and no claim can necessarily be laid for the sub- 
sequent development of the complex activities often result- 
ing. That is, the adolescent may become sexually drawn to 


DISTURBANCE OF PERSONALITY 145 


Venus and Adonis, and thence may result a study of all 
Shakespearian drama, even a literary career, and it is doubt- 
ful whether the original sex wish ever functioned except in 
the initiatory stage of linking the sex response to the original 
reading stimulus. 

Dealing with the maladjusted personality. From the 
above survey of the mental pathology of adolescence, the 
reader has come to see that the maladjusted personality has 
elements in his make-up of which he is often not aware; that 
a knowledge of these dissociated or poorly functioning ele- 
ments often is the necessary starting point toward socializing 
the personality; that normal social adaptation generally re- 
sults under frank and honest treatment given the adolescent; 
that abnormal types generally reflect the acquired malad- 
justments of pre-adolescence, for whom a careful regulation 
of environmental conditions, physical and mental hygiene, 
and perhaps at times the Freudian therapeutics may be nec- 
essary, if the arrest to normal adolescent development is to 
be removed. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. What is insanity? Feeble-mindedness? May a feeble-minded person 
become insane? 

2. Make a list of automatisms frequently occurring during childhood, 
and undertake to explain how these became started. Propose the 
proper educational treatment. 

3. How may fear psychoses be dissipated? 

4, Look up the psychoanalytic method, evaluate it, and consider whether 
it offers anything by way of suggestion to the teacher. 

5. Relate the activity of the subconscious to such facts as: solving a prob- 
lem overnight; it pays to distribute rather than mass practice in learn- 
ing; cramming for an examination is generally inadvisable. 

6. What is the subconscious? : 


CHAPTER XII 
THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS PERSONALITY 


Ir is commonly held that the child is neither moral nor im- 
moral, but that heis unmoral. The years of pre-adolescence 
bring a slow development of the moral sense, with adoles- 
cence being the period where the life of morality grows rap- 
idly. Here is the time when the youth becomes relatively 
set as a moral or immoral being. Asa moral being, recogniz- 
ing of course the relativity of the term, he comes to entertain 
a sense of right and justice, to respect the privilege and prop- 
erty of others, and to make the endorsements of his group 
function in the control of his own conduct. The immoral 
youth fails to fit in with the demands which the community 
as a whole agrees as necessary for its membership, and crim- 
inality results. 

Criminality and adolescence. That adolescence may be a 
period for marked criminality goes almost without saying. 
With impulses and almost newly-found emotions bringing at 
times an upheaval of personality and the poorly developed 
moral life; with the adolescent facing countless new situa- 
tions and stimuli in the rapidly expanding social environ- 
ment; with the old authoritative moorings of childhood nat- 
urally cast off, and the new ones of adolescence quite unat- 
tained; with parents and teachers often failing to help with 
the moral conflicts the adolescent may be enduring; with the 
occasional abnormalities of arrested mentality discussed in 
the preceding chapter; finally, with the adolescent some- 


MORAL AND RELIGIOUS PERSONALITY 147 


times receiving his education for moral growth from the only 
group into which he seems to find himself fit (namely, the 
gang), instead of through socially endorsed channels — it is 
not surprising that the period of adolescence becomes critical 
for the appearance of criminality. 

There naturally result two main classes of adolescent 
criminals: (1) the criminals by inheritance, where native 
qualities render them anti-social, these including the typical 
hereditary degenerate; and (2) the criminals by circum- 
stances, wherein the environment (industry, financial need, 
lack of parental control, opportunity for bad companions, 
lack of occupation, etc.) may help to render the adolescent a 
criminal even though his mental powers have been entirely 
normal. 

Either type, whether individual or social, is likely to ap- 
pear as a more or less normal phase of the mental and moral 
adjustment so characteristic of the period, and, while the 
writer does not want to condone the all too typical sowing of 
“wild oats,” it does need to be emphasized that many of the 
character faults of boyhood and early adolescence rather 
naturally become met and mastered through proper school 
treatment, and that much of the moral delinquency seen in 
adolescence need not, and generally does not, eventuate in 
confirmed criminality. Nor does this mean that lying, steal- 
ing, maliciously damaging property, indulging in cruelty, 
improper sex activities, and other criminal tendencies are to 
be winked at. These and all other violations of group sanc- 
tions merit and require group disapproval and punishment. 

Moral growth and training. Someone has aptly stated 
that “‘the school is even open to the accusation of giving as- 


148 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


sistance to the making of criminals through sheer boredom 
imposed upon adolescents.” So long as no provision is made 
for the exercise of interest, little can be expected: the best re- 
sults would come from fusion of the activities of the schoo! 
with the tendencies which, uncontrolled, express themselves 
in the hooligan gang.! The resources possessed by the school 
for moral training are gigantic in scope, even though these are 
scarcely in their infancy of utilization. The moral activities 
engaged in by pupils in a junior high school worthy of the 
name — direct moral instruction, the moral values in the 
various studies of literature, composition, foreign languages, 
art, history and civics, geography, science, household and in- 
dustrial arts, mathematics, even physical education, em- 
ployment of the feeling life and other native or acquired 
promptings, and finally, religious education itself — suggest 
the educational possibilities for genuine moral training. 
Mr. George, with his Junior Republic, has pointed out the 
principles underlying the improvement of adolescents possess- 
ing criminal tendencies, these having to do quite largely with 
furnishing the wayward one a real position of opportunity 
and responsibility in a group which he himself helps to con- 
stitute and control.? Jane Addams, in her broadly interpre- 
tative Spirit of Youth and Our City Streets, has emphasized 
that “‘recreation is stronger than vice, and recreation alone 
can stifle the lust for vice.” With the social, industrial, and 


1Slaughter, J. W., The Adolescent, p. 80. (George Allen and Unwin, 
Ltd., London, 1911.) 

2See Neumann, H., Education for Moral Growth, chaps. x1-xvut, for the 
sanest and most helpful discussion available for this very difficult topic. 
(D. Appleton and Company, 1923.) 

8’See Whipple, G. M., in Monroe’s Principles of Secondary Education, 
p. 296. (The Macmillan Company, 1916.) 


MORAL AND RELIGIOUS PERSONALITY 149 


educational environment organized to give the adolescent 
opportunity toward full moral development, and especially 
with the adolescent school making the most of its opportu- 
nity, there is good reason to expect that the vast majority 
of adolescents will safely adjust to the enlarged social 
schema into which they must grow, and toward problems 
of which they must learn to adjust in ways carrying social 
approval. 

The religious personality. In the development of adoles- 
cent personality — the total potentiality of response an in- 
dividual possesses for meeting life situations — the religious 
aspect plays a prominent réle. Lancaster, Starbuck, Coe, 
Hall, and others have shown that, if the statistics of conver- 
sion be plotted, the curve rises irregularly through the early 
teens, reaches its highest point at sixteen, then falls irregu- 
larly toward maturity. . Furthermore, Lancaster reports 
that experiencing a religious crisis akin to conversion tends 
to be almost universal, since 518 of the 598 young people in- 
vestigated were ready to admit having faced the experience. 
Interesting to note, the high point of the curve is nearly coin- 
cident with the age at which the adolescent crime-curve is 
commonly held to reach its apex, namely, about fifteen. 
Finally, further connection should be noted with the average 
maturing of general intelligence, as discussed in Chapter 
VII. It would seem to appear, therefore, that the middle 
teens — specifically, the period presumably set, on the aver- 
age, for the termination of early adolescence and junior high 
school instruction — marks the maximum strength of the 
inner energies so typical for the adolescent, and that all men- 
tal forces — intellectual, emotional, volitional, moral, and 


150 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


spiritual — are operating at a maximum, potential for good 
or evil. 

The causes for the rapid development of the religious per- 
sonality are not far to seek, as they do not take the psycholo- 
gist away from his general thesis that all the determinants of 
action are within the individual, and are reducible to the few 
simple and analyzable factors of reactions so often mentioned 
in earlier pages. This postulates no specific instinct of reli- 
gion coming into play at adolescence or any other life period, 
nor does it give place for registering the touch of the Divine 
considered so fundamental in certain theological systems. 
Rather, with the gradual accumulations of experience; the 
maturing of the sexual and social instincts and their attend- 
ant emotions; the often described readjustment process to- 
ward life; the necessary transition from egoism to altruism, 
developing the heliocentric (social) in rivalry to the fairly 
egocentric (individual) attitude; and finally, as a natural re- 
sult of securing all sorts of conditioned ways of responding 
and perhaps in the development of “‘escape mechanisms,” the 
adolescent often becomes “converted’’; that is, he definitely 
decides to turn from the older moorings of self-love and self- 
interests and even sin and seeks to revamp his life in keeping 
with the conventionalized pattern set by formulated religion 
and approved by the older members of his social group. 
That merely making the decision to turn and giving it pub- 
lic confession do not and cannot radically modify at once the 
reaction system the adolescent has been a good many years 
forming, and that a period of doubt and skepticism regard- 
ing the implications of his decision subsequently and nor- 
mally arises, are facts clearly known to the student of human 


MORAL AND RELIGIOUS PERSONALITY 151 


behavior, even though theological implications may urge 
otherwise. Conversion and doubt, as the crucial aspects of 
the religious aspect of adolescent personality, are both bio- 
logically determined. The known facts well may be set 
forth. 

The psychology of adolescent conversion. Shorn of all 
the conventionalities set up by organized religion, the follow- 
ing seem true statements of what is really psychologically 
justified regarding conversion: 

1. Conversion, with all its “‘seriousness, its fears and dis- 
tresses, its crises, its sense of personal need, either in the way 
of deliverance from bondage and fear or in the way of help in 
attaining to some higher realization, its emergence out of 
darkness into light and calm, with the clear conviction of 
having passed from a state of perdition to a state of salva- 
tion,’ tends generally to be much more in the nature of grad- 
ual growth than an instantaneous and miraculous paroxysm. 

2. In the occurrence of the latter type, the explanation is 
found in the known facts of the slow accumulation and 
maturing of experience, presumably often carried subcon- 
sciously, the sudden-decision aspect being, like so many 
other decisions, the appearance as the end-result of a long 
process of mental growth and often called out, as so many 
moral decisions are, by a situation largely emotionally toned. 

3. The essential religious decision may be rationally ar- 
rived at without the attendant pyrotechnics so often consid- 
ered essential steps attendant upon saving one’s soul. 
Struggle and the thrill of victory herein appear to be absent. 

4. Conversion may or may not function long in control- 
ling conduct, the convertee becoming permanently regener- 


152 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


ated or the godless backslider, as the case may be, since the 
religious decision, in agreement with all other important reg- 
istrations effected by the self, requires integration in the en- 
tire acting equipment of the organism to be rendered per- 
manent for controlling conduct. “Once in grace” may argue 
little for psychological permanence. Needless to say, se- 
curing formal church membership, subscribing to and partic- 
ipating in sacramental routine, securing situations for act- 
ing upon religious promptings, etc., help to engrain the con- 
version and keep it upon the conventionalized pathway 
prepared for it. 

5. The psychology of emotion, with its emphasis upon the 
deep-rooted character of the instinct-emotional unity, at- 
tachments and detachments, and the development of senti- 
ments and ideals, especially with its emphasis upon the sex- 
ual as the physiological basis of much if not all the higher and 
finer qualities of personality, whether ethical or spiritual, 
gives explanation not only for much of the formation, but is 
the main guarantee for permanence of the religious life. 

The psychology of adolescent doubt. ‘The preceding par- 
agraphs have sufliced to show the essentially biological char- 
acter of that aspect of the religious experience commonly 
known as “conversion.” ‘The period of skepticism or doubt 
should grow naturally out of the conversion phenomena. 
The causes of adolescent doubtings are easily stated. First, 
adolescence is essentially a period of mental expansion, and 
mental energy is turned quite naturally to the scrutiny of 
many things heretofore taken for granted. Second, many 
childish teachments are corrected through the normal expe- 
riences of school instruction, and probably a slowly forming 


MORAL AND RELIGIOUS PERSONALITY 156 


general tendency to doubt many hold-over childish ideas is 
bred in the correction of the various Santa Claus explana- 
tions which parents, Sunday School teachers, and others 
have given in answer to the curiosity and credulity of child- 
hood. Third, the data of scientific instruction no doubt 
often undermine childish foundations without being able 
shortly to replace them with a better structure. Fourth, the 
adolescent discovers that conversion has not solved at a 
stroke his moral difficulties, and that the struggle with the 
world, the flesh, and the devil stillis on. Fifth, he sees too 
often what he thinks is the unchristianlike conduct of sup- 
posedly Christian adults, and, in this state of disillusion- 
ment, comes to believe he has built for himself merely a 
house of cards. Lastly, before the sweep of his own so- 
branded immoral urges, he may try to get away from his reli- 
gious subscriptions by seeking to disbelieve them, for the 
adolescent seeks essentially to be honest with himself. 

It is entirely natural, therefore, that most adolescents 
doubt the teachings normally furnished by the church of 
their faith, and raise questions of deep moment; for example, 
is God existent and personal; is there heaven, hell, and eter- 
nal punishment for sin; is Jesus the physical son of the 
Father, and born of a virgin; are the miracles, the resurrec- 
tion, ascension, salvation by grace, etc., bona fide phenom- 
ena; is there a soul, is it immortal, and may it be saved or 
lost; is Deity a power for both good and evil in human af- 
fairs, or is He impotently sitting on His throne and watching 
the mechanistic cause-effect happenings; and where did the 
world and all that is therein come from, anyway, and why? 
Let the reader not be misied, however, in believing that this 


154 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


adolescent doubting is restricted to the youth’s religious life, 
for doubt as an attitude is functioning regarding moral, so- © 
cial, vocational, and other fields of activity. Neither should 
the reader be misled in thinking that all adolescents undergo 
the experiences of skepticism, for, just as in some cases the 
youth may gradually build up the character and habits 
marking the Christian without the conversion crisis, so 
many a young Christian has never had his complacency dis- 
turbed, and, living his life in a circle of small mental radius, 
has a peace scarcely worthy of comparison with that secured 
through doubt and the resulting intellectual reconstruction. 
Still again, the reader should not think that the high school 
youth may not be safely led, thoughtfully and rationally, to 
adjust his earlier views in the light of his new contacts with 
science, human problems, and the broadened zone of activity 
generally. 

The needs of the adolescent. This is not the place for a 
discussion of religious training, but the writer cannot avoid 
stating that the adolescent does not need anchorage so much 
as he needs the open sea; that he needs at last to have his re- 
ligious beliefs grounded in his own thinking; that he needs to 
be allowed honesty with himself, to the end that, like the 
savage, he may unite his science and religion; and that he 
may differentiate between the man-made religious elements 
constituting the débris-like accumulations of the centuries 
and the few essential facts defining the God-to-man relation- 
ships which, when entering in for the control of conduct, will 
make a difference for individual and social good, and consti- 
tute values because of the service rendered in meeting the 
needs of the organism. 


MORAL AND RELIGIOUS PERSONALITY 155 


The stimulus-response hypothesis as illustrated by religion 


The two preceding discussions have aimed to give psycho- 
logical foundation to the moral and spiritual forces of per- 
sonality generally considered quite elusive and intangible. 
In continuance herein a few closing paragraphs may suffice 
to bring the reader back to the stimulus-response hypothesis 
considered fundamental to this entire treatise and, with the 
religion personality as the primary illustration, give a point 
of view general enough to apply to all major situations and 
problems faced by youth. This will involve a deeper analy- 
sis of the psychology of religion than is normally justified in 
a popular treatise. 


Let the reader approach the problem from the standpoint of 
biological evolution. The metaphysics of the matter need not con- 
cern us here. ‘The reason the adolescent comes ever to form any 
concept of deity, the conditions under which this concept proves 
inadequate, what difference this concept makes as a working force 
in the actual life of man, what values certain bodies of knowledge 
have for the meeting of problems — these are questions that im- 
mediately appear. 

Life as an influence. If the psycho-physical organism were ca- 
pable of meeting all difficulties as they arose, or if the organism 
dwelt in a world where trial had never to be faced or need never to 
be felt, no concept of God would ever be formed. There is no in- 
stinctive basis or religious germ within the protoplasmic self. The 
belief in God and his willingness to help depends solely upon the 
way man has to live his life. If life conditions are easy, and the 
organism has little or no difficulty in solving his problems, the god- 
concept is scanty, provided it is even existent. But as soon as 
need arises, as soon as equilibrium of the organism is violently dis- 
turbed, as soon as the terrors of darkness and the arrows of noon- 
day oppress one’s tranquillity of spirit, as soon as the enwearied is 
preparing to loose his bark for the voyage into the impenetrable 


156 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


shadows of an apparently undying night — then God arises. A 
god is the noblest work of man, and man’s attention is turned 
toward the task of god-building when such a construct is the only 
altar to which he can carry his burdens, where he can gain renewed 
hope and strength for the burden bearing and where, if he cannot 
find aid for the task, he can trust his all and rest, with the confident 
belief that the Unseen will make all things to work together for 
good. 

The god-belief arises, thus, in the face of need. This concept, in 
so far as it involves ideas of love, assistance, gratitude, and fear, 
possesses these only because the builder has known what it is to 
love, to give and receive aid, to feel hate and experience gratitude, 
to tremble with fear before a superior earth power. Because of 
need the god is called into being; out of human experimental data 
the construction is made; god’s function is to aid us in solving our 
problems. 

When difficulty resolves and the organism is again in tune with 
himself and his environment, the problem-solving god would be no 
longer needed were it not for the fact that the human being is 
dynamic, constantly striving, constantly meeting new obstacles, 
and finding new and greater problems emerging out of each new 
solved situation. Paradoxical as it may appear, the more the 
problems are solved the more new and greater ones arise; the more 
the god aids man to do his work, the more foundation is laid for the 
superstructure of mightier tasks. Unrest is the price one pays for 
living in a world where need is rife and problem can be met. The 
prayer for peace is not the petition of a healthy soul. If peace is 
completely attained, then will the job of the god be no longer 
existent. A millennium may be just such a peaceful condition, in 
which without problem, without strain, without god, man may rest. 

Three conditions may maintain as between man and his problems. 
When the organism is confronted with a situation, perhaps his ex- 
perience has been such that he has the solution ready at hand. In 
this case, the stimulus is no greater than the energy available for 
the task. No problem in the true sense of the word emerges. Or 
the difficulty may be great, the odds too heavy. Nothing in ex- 
perience can be called upon to handle the obstacles. Old ways of 
reacting break down. Here problem is seen and here the help of 
the god to act as a spur to face the matter and fight through the 
difficulties is sorely needed. Here is the foundation head of true 


MORAL AND RELIGIOUS PERSONALITY 157 


religion. Or, thirdly, the situation may not prove a great task for 
the organism. Perhaps a reservoir of strength has been formed, 
this equal to the emergency and some to spare. Situation creates 
no problem here; problem exists, but it is the problem of satiety, 
the problem of finding outlet for energy rather than the creation of 
insufficient energy. 

Three forms of religion. Out of each of these three possible life 
situations a form of religion is evolved. In the first case, we have 
mysticism, where the soul finds himself at peace with God. With 
his eyes uplifted to deity and his attention turned away from his 
brother and the problems of life, the mystic finds temporary happi- 
ness. He walks with God and is one with him. In the second case, 
we have redemption. Here the oppressed soul is willing to grovel 
in the dust, to make any sacrifice, to adopt any device if only his 
evil can be met. And here the cry goes out for a daysman to place 
his hand upon the drooping shoulder of the sin-troubled pilgrim 
and point the way to that source of all things helpful. But in case 
three, conditions seem reversed. Here the individual’s religion is 
not one of close communion with the divine, nor is it one of a search 
after redemption. It represents where surcease from care has 
come and the soul so strong that it can go out and expend much 
energy in aiding others in their struggles with evils. Selfishness, 
fear of personal danger, self-satisfied inner-living — all are gone. 

These various stages are not clear-cut in the individual life. 
They are neither permanent nor mutually exclusive. The soul 
crying out for redemption may have his petition answered and be 
for a time so drawn into harmony with the supernal as to walk the 
path of mysticism. Likewise, the moralist may have his mystical 
moments. In fact, one is inclined to believe that redemptive re- 
ligion may function as the transition stage into the religion of 
morality, for the soul that has truly found itself yearns to work, 
seeks a job, reaches for danger, courts disaster. However, the 
same line of conduct, viewed pragmatically, may obtain without 
the individual having consciously gone through the redemptive 
stage. By a process of steady, experimental development he may 
have come to get a true view of brotherhood and function just as 
valuably to serve, to disperse energy, to attain equilibrium as his 
commonly considered more religious brother. But this equilib- 
rium from the consciousness of task well done represents a different 
type of satisfaction from that of mysticism. In this latter case we 


158 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


have peace because of lack of activity; in the former, that peace 
which comes only because the task is finished well, God’s will has 
been done, the doer entitled to his rest. 

The place of human need. One needs to ask regarding the values 
the god-concept and other men-created bodies of knowledge have 
in aiding the organism. In general, all religion, art, morality have 
arisen on account of the human need in the preservative struggle. 
But they satisfy different aspects of the human nééd, and so func- 
tion differently to aid the deficient energy of man to become equal 
to or greater than the opposing stimulus. 

Religion, as above analyzed, comes to aid in meeting the prob- 
lems due to man’s ignorance and weakness. Ignorance of how to 
cope with the forces of nature, to stay the finger of disease, to gain 
succor in time of famine, to win the fight and scalp the enemy, to 
furnish a guide for the disseveration journey — such are the prob- 
lems growing out of man’s weakness and ignorance. ‘These cause 
religion to take her stand upon the side of an insufficient native 
power. 

Art also arises to meet a need due to the preservation struggle, 
but this need is not that due to ignorance and helplessness. ‘These 
called religion to the succor of energy, so that the organism might 
have courage to strive until knowledge can be increased and help- 
lessness made less apparent. ‘The very evil with which art has to 
do is the evil inherent in the bare necessary struggle for existence 
itself. The struggle which meets the case by having knowledge 
and help is itself the source of anew need. This, art arises to meet. 
This new evil points to the insufficiency that remains to the organ- 
ism as a whole after full account has been taken of the satisfaction 
obtained in the mere preservation struggle — that necessary satis- 
faction the struggle which gives food and which is involved in re- 
production naturally produces. This is not sufficient. The 
creation of the beautiful has for its function to make good this in- 
sufficiency in question and to satisfy the need which grows out of 
knowledge and assistance. But as art grows and adds to native 
power so as to make this equal to or greater than the organic de- 
mands (with the modification of dissatisfaction and unrest), the 
task of religion becomes lighter and the struggles of the ignorant 
and helpless seem easier to face. 

Morality satisfies a life need. In the evolutionary struggle, the 
strong have emerged. Oppression has become the watchword of 


MORAL AND RELIGIOUS PERSONALITY 159 


the ruler, hatred of the weakling. This breach has been natural, 
and master, because of his fitness, has been set over against servant, 
the rich against the poor. Historically, this has proved in part un- 
fortunate, since this condition lowers the life within the paired 
group and exposes the divided group to the power of a weaker alien 
force. Morality has arisen for the purpose of creating harmony, to 
bring equilibrium between master and servant. This involves not 
only equality as viewed objectively (from a legal basis), but sub- 
jectively (as in accordance with the general principles of brother- 
hood). Through following its principles social equilibrium is ob- 
tained. 

The human-need basis. We see, therefore, that the functions 
of religion, art, and morality are different, both etiologically and 
teleologically. This difference is due to the fact that they satisfy 
different human needs. It is not that they satisfy the same need, 
but rather the different modifications of a single unitary need. 
Religion will be satisfied by dogma, creed, cult, institution; art by 
music, drama, painting, sculpture; morality by law, family, voca- 
tion, the state. To repeat, this does not mean that the one general 
need is the same, and that religion, art, and morality are merely 
three ways of satisfying it. “Rather, they are different panacez 
for different needs that arise in the action system of the organism as 
it carries out its evolutionary tasks. As long as one struggles, 
religion, art, and morality must be his companions. If the task is 
hard enough, man needs religion. With the solution of each new 
problem a newer and greater one arises. Man’s prayer that he 
keep his religion should be that he be provided with tasks that 
overtax his strength. Then he will rely upon that power that is a 
little stronger than himself, and then will he have the strength to 
meet and overcome the evil in his way. 





QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. Judge Ben B. Lindsay is quoted as stating that, if environment were 
corrected in toto, ninety-six per cent of the delinquents would be 
saved. Discuss and evaluate. 

2. Which factor is more important for moral development — what 
nature does for one, what society does, or what he does for himself? 
Illustrate. 

8. Is it wise to excite the state of doubt in early adolescence? In senior 
high school? 


160 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


4. How may a youth be taught the facts of biological evolution in general] 
science without becoming shipwrecked in his religious faith? 

5. Attempt to cite instances of adolescents feeling the three stimulus- 
response formule stated as typical of mysticism, redemptive religion, 
and morality respectively. 

6. Should direct moral training be given? How can it? 


SELECTED REFERENCES FOR PART IV 


Berman, L. The Glands Regulating Personality. (1921.) 

Coe, G. A. Education in Religion and Morals. (1904.) 

Dunlap, K. Mysticism, Freudianism, and Scientific Psychology. (1920.) 

Foster, G. B. Unpublished lectures, University of Chicago. 

Freud, S. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, (1920.) 

Psychopathology of Everyday Life. (1914.) 

Groves, E. R. Personality and Social Adjustment. (1923.) 

Hart, B. Psychology of Insanity. (1914.) 

Janet, P.M. F. Major Symptoms of Hysteria. (1907.) 

Jastrow, J. The Subconscious. (1906.) 

Moll, A. Sexual Life of the Child, (1911.) 

Neumann, H. Education for Moral Growth. (1923.) 

Sadler, M. E. Moral Instruction and Training in Schools. (1908.) 

Slaughter, J. W. The Adolescent. (1911.) 

Starbuck, E. H. Psychology of Religion. (1901.) 

Trow, W.C. The Psychology of Confidence. (1923.) 

Watson, J.B. Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, chap. Xt. 
(1919.) 

Woodworth, R.S. Psychology, chap. xx1. (1921.) 





SECTION II 


PSYCHOLOGY OF THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 
(APPLIED) 





INTRODUCTION TO SECTION II 


THE junior high school is more than an administrative con- 
venience designed to relieve congestion by a redistribution of 
upper-grade pupils; it is the natural outcome of the effort of 
education to keep pace with the developing needs of an in- 
creasingly complex society. With social and civic progress, 
the educational consciousness of the community is aroused 
to demand more education for all its members and diversi- 
fied training in the interest of wise vocational adjustment. 
The junior high school has evolved in response to this de- 
mand. Through its agency the level of popular education is 
gradually being raised to include a ninth year for all children, 
and varied lines of educational advance are being marked 
out in accordance with individual differences and com- 
munity needs. 


Underlying principles 

The underlying principles of the junior high school may be 
summed up in the following terms: (a) codrdination; (b) dif- 
ferentiation; (c) exploration; (d) participation; (e) integra- 
tion. A brief consideration of each of these follows. 

Coodrdination. ‘The junior high school must be the coérdi- 
nating unit in the entire public school system. One defect of 
the former 8—4 type of organization was the completeness of 
the break in content of studies, method, and daily program 
between the grammar school and the high school. Under 
the 6-3-3 plan the transition is a gradual one from elemen- 


164 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


tary school to junior high school, and from junior high school 
to senior high school. This is accomplished in the following 
ways: 


(1) Transition in content of studies. By including in the work of 
the seventh and eighth grades simple introductory lessons in for- 
eign languages, science, geometry, algebra, drafting, and shop 
practice, pupils are given a preliminary understanding of the 
materials, the vocabulary, and the processes of these studies. 
Such lessons are pre-high school in character; they do not consist 
of the first lessons of high school subjects thrust down into lower 
grades, nor do they supersede the necessary continuance of funda- 
mental studies begun in the elementary school. 

(2) Transition in method. In the elementary school study and 
recitation are composite activities under teacher guidance. In the 
junior high school, pupils are made conscious of their study proc- 
esses and are trained to increasing independence in the supervised 
study period. This is an intermediary step to the complete in- 
dependence of home study required in the senior high school. 

(3) Transition in organization. The departmental program of 
the junior high school, with its longer period and its emphasis upon 
the intimacy of relation between home-room teacher and class, is a 
natural transition from the one-teacher plan of the elementary 
school, and at the same time a preliminary stage of advance to the 
more complete subject-specialization of the senior high school. 
The change is gradual also from the general course of the elemen- 
tary school to choice of course in the junior high school, and even- 
tually to freer subject election in the senior high school. 


Differentiation. ‘The junior high school builds its pro- 
gram of differentiated curricula in recognition of the fact 
that different individuals are attracted by and responsive to 
different types of training, and also that the vocational life 
of the community requires diversified educational opportu- 
nities. The following program is typical of the extent to 
which the principle of differentiation may be incorporated 
in the work of the school: 


INTRODUCTION 165 


Foreign LANauacse Curricutum Trcunicat CURRICULUM 


English English Social Studies 
Mathematics Mathematics Science 
Social Studies Drafting 
Science Elementary Machine Shop 

Cabinet-Making 
French or Latin Pattern-Making 

Printing 

COMMERCIAL CURRICULUM 

English First Lessons in Business 
Mathematics Typewriting 
Social Studies Bookkeeping 
Science Commercial Geography 


INDUSTRIAL CURRICULUM 


Book Work — Half-Day 
English Mathematics Social Studies Science 


Shop Work — Half-Day 
Boys select one of the following shops: 
Cabinet-Making Electricity Machine Shop Print Shop 
Drafting Gas Engine Pattern-Making Sheet Metal 
Painting and Decorating 


Girls take work in the following home-making courses: 
Cooking Dressmaking Millinery Textiles 
Design Household Science Sewing 


In addition to differentiations in type of training, the jun- 
ior high school continues and enlarges upon the work of 
the elementary school in the recognition of mental-ability 
ranges. Ability-grouping, with acceleration and enrichment 
for the very bright, and minimum courses and time adjust- 
ments for the very slow, are methods of procedure made 
administratively possible by the junior high school type of 
organization. 

Exploration. The development of the child through early 
adolescence implies a natural broadening of outlook. Dur- 


166 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


ing this period, try-out experiences of many kinds are desir- 
able in order that the individual may begin to shape his fu- 
ture along lines of proved adaptability and success. This 
necessitates the interpretation of experience and the exer- 
cise of selective judgment. The junior high school parallels 
its opportunities for experimentation with guidance activi- 
ties which assist the student to study himself and his envi- 
ronment, and to make choices in an intelligent and discrim- 
inating way. 

Participation. Participation is the keynote of all the so- 
cialized activities of the junior high school. Socialized les- 
son-procedure and pupil-planning of projects for study are 
methods of utilizing this principle in classroom work. Stu- 
dent participation in school control is a generally accepted 
theory of good school management which translates itself 
into student government in the junior high school, and helps 
to make of the school a training ground for democracy. 
The participation of every pupil in the extra-curricular ac- 
tivities provided means not only a well-balanced develop- 
ment for the individual, but a shared recreative experience 
which is a basic element in social solidarity. 

Integration. The codperative era is gradually superseding 
that of competition, and its dawning is marked by the devel- 
opment of the social consciousness. When the individual 
feels his relation to the group and accepts his responsibility 
for social service, he attains to a mental point of vantage 
from which he views life in terms of the larger success. The 
junior high school aims toward the induction of each of its 
members into conscious relationship with the school as the 
largest social group to which the adolescent has as yet at- 


INTRODUCTION 167 


tained. By developing among its students a sense of school 
spirit and of obligation to render willing service for the good 
of the whole, social attitudes of brotherhood, loyalty, and 
civic pride are fostered which, carried from the school into the 
larger community, as the child develops into the man, mean 
cooperative effort for the betterment of social conditions. 

In the succeeding chapters of this book these underlying 
principles of the junior high school movement receive further 
discussion and elaboration. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. What are the advantages of the 6-3-3 type of organization, as com- 
pared with the 8-4 type? 

2. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of departmentalization as 
to: (a) the teacher; and (b) the pupils. 

8. By what means may the junior high school secure an intimacy of re- 
lationship with the individual pupil comparable to that which exists 
between teacher and pupil in the elementary school? 

4. “The junior high school would prevent abrupt transitions between 
the elementary school and itself, and between itself and the upper 
high school.” Explain how the junior high school can accomplish 
this objective. 

5. Discuss the possibilities of student participation in: (a) the planning 
and presentation of lessons; (b) school control; (c) the establishment 
of school standards. 

6. Explain what is meant by the integration of the school. Suggest 
means of accomplishing school integration. 


SELECTED REFERENCES 


Briggs, T. H. The Junior High School. (1920.) 

Glass, J. M. The Spirit of the Junior High School. (1916.) 

Horn, P. W. “The Junior High School in Houston, Texas’; in Ele- 
mentary School Journal, October, 1915. 

Judd, C. H. “The Junior High School’’; in School Review, April, 1916. 

Koos, L. V. The Junior High School. (1921.) 

Lyman, R.L. “The Junior High Schools of Montclair, New Jersey’’; in 
School Review, September, 1921. 

Van Denburg, J. K. The Junior High School Idea. (1922.) 


(BART AE. 
INSTRUCTION 


CHAPTER XIII | 
SUPERVISED STUDY 


Study supervision as a junior high school function. Super- 
vised study is an intermediary technic between the directed 
work of the elementary school and the complete independ- 
ence of study expected in the senior high school. The jun- 
ior high school is a transition unit in the educational system. 
It must, therefore, give increasing emphasis to the develop- 
ment of those powers in the individual which will help him to 
make adjustment, gradually and naturally, from the régime 
of teacher-dependence in the mastery of fundamentals to 
that of self-dependence in home study. It is true that there 
is no definite period when a child is taught to study. The 
school situation day by day, from first grade to college, is 
either establishing habits of logical thought or failing to 
do so. No teacher can escape responsibility for fostering 
good study habits through clear, well-articulated lesson pro- 
cedures; but in the junior high school how to learn is as sig- 
nificant as what to learn, and the junior high school pupil 
should be brought, through study supervision, to a conscious 
realization of the best processes for effecting mastery of 
content. 

The nature of study. Study is no longer assumed to be 
the memorization of textbook material for reproduction dur- 


SUPERVISED STUDY 169 


ing a recitation period. It is considered rather as a vital 
process by which the individual, reacting to the stimulus of 
an intellectual difficulty or problem, thinks his way through 
certain contents or experiences until he reaches a solution 
which satisfies his own mind. The pupil may read an as- 
signed chapter or listen to a lesson presentation, but, unless 
the chapter or the presentation provides him with the ma- 
terial to answer some question which has challenged his 
thought, he will derive therefrom only a superficial, unas- 
similated series of facts that easily fade from memory be- 
cause unrelated to any idea-system in his mind. 

The factors of study. The conception of study as purpos- 
ive thinking has led to the analysis of the study process into 
the following factors: (a) recognition of the problem; (b) col- 
lection of data; (c) organization of ideas; (d) formulation of 
judgment; (e) application of ideas; (f) memorization; (g) ini- 
tiative. These have received such thorough and illuminat- 
ing treatment from McMurry and Earhart that it is unneces- 
sary to discuss them further. The first five are the familiar 
steps in the reasoning process, and their appearance as the 
factors of study is evidence of the close identification of 
study with logical thinking. Memorization and initiative 
are accompaniments of the entire process, rather than con- 
cluding steps. Content that has been assimilated because 
“food for thought” is necessarily retained in its associa- 
tional relations, although some overlearning may be desir- 
able to insure rapid recall in response to various cues. Ini- 
tiative as a factor in study implies the conscious seeking of 
the whole reacting personality for a satisfactory solution to 
the problem as the self views it. Study is a subjective 


170 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


process, implying self activity; consequently, the free play 
of personal initiative is inherent in its very nature. 

The divided-period plan of supervised study. Every 
analysis of the study process has shown that it is not a 
single reaction, occurring spontaneously with all children, 
but a highly complex mental activity necessitating train- 
ing. For this reason children must be taught how to study. 
A basic technic must be devised that in its essentials will 
be applicable to all subject contents. In general, the di- 
vided-period plan of procedure has been found more bene- 
ficial than the special study hour in a study room, or the in- 
dividual conference which offers training only to the weaker 
students. 

The first requisite of the divided-period plan is the length- 
ened or double period. The complete lesson process, from 
review to summary, must be carried out under the supervi- 
sion of oneteacher. For this purpose the shortest time allot- 
ment that is at all practicable is the sixty-minute period. 
Where the eighty-minute period is administratively possible 
it is even more desirable. 

Under the divided-period plan of supervised study, a com- 
plete lesson-unit includes the following phases: (1) review; 
(2) assignment; (3) silent study; and (4) summary. 

1. The review. The review is the part of the lesson de- 
voted to recall and reorganization of content previously 
studied and essential, as an apperceptive group of ideas, to 
the new step of the lesson. During this phase of the lesson 
the children are working coéperatively in highly socialized 
activities and the teacher plays a minor role, guiding the dis- 
cussion when it goes astray and stimulating it when it tends 


SUPERVISED STUDY 171 


to flag. Socialized procedure needs intensive planning by 
the teacher, and its possibilities will be discussed in a suc- 
ceeding chapter. 

2. The assignment. The review aspect of the lesson leads 
directly into the assignment. Here the teacher assumes 
the leading part. From the mastered material of the review 
he carries the children on toa recognition of the next prob- 
lem to be attacked. The skill with which he causes the 
problem to emerge, so that it flashes clearly across the mind 
of each individual as a summons to further mental activity, 
determines to a degree the eagerness with which his pupils 
approach the work of the silent-study period. The as- 
signment period will necessarily include explanation and 
enrichments which will help to make the problem possible 
of solution and attractive in content. It will also involve 
“how to study” directions concerning the specific materials 
to be used. Its main function, however, is to secure the 
clear recognition of the problem as a preliminary to indi- 
vidual effort toward its solution. 

8. The silent-study period. During the silent-study period 
which succeeds the assignment, the children work independ- 
ently. The slower pupils may need further guidance from 
the teacher, but, for the most part, if the assignment has 
really accomplished its purpose, the majority of the students 
will be able to proceed without assistance. Any evidence of 
general inability to cope with the lesson is an indication to 
the teacher of some flaw in planning or presentation. Dur- 
ing the silent-study period the teacher is free to observe the 
study habits of individual pupils, as shown by promptness 
of execution, concentration of effort, and effective use of ma- 


172 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


terials, and, as a result of such observations, specific training 
exercises may be devised. 

In any group of forty pupils, no matter how homogene- 
ously classified, there will be a few pupils who work faster 
than the majority of the class. As the complete utilization 
of study time for study purposes is a desirable habit to incul- 
cate, a special assignment of work related to the main prob- 
lem should be provided for the more rapid pupils. Refer- 
ence reading not required of all pupils, graphs, outlines, the 
preparation of questions for class use, etc., may become the 
special responsibilities of the very bright, whose powers are 
thus utilized not only for self development, but for social. 
helpfulness as well. These children may also be allowed to 
supervise and direct the work of slow children during the 
study period, if the lesson presents intricacies that cannot be 
generally anticipated. 

4. The summary. When the lesson is a complete unit in 
itself, or when it is the last unit in a series on a given topic, 
a summary period is desirable. During this time the main 
facts of the lesson are arranged in brief but orderly sequence, 
and a few clear-cut ideas are accorded special emphasis. 
The summary does not take the place of the review, but it 
serves to call into prominence the vital ideas which answer 
the class problem of the day. 

Supervised study in relation to the teacher. Supervised 
study as a classroom method lays upon the teacher certain 
definite responsibilities. The lesson procedure outlined in 
the preceding paragraphs is necessarily a slow process. For 
this reason a preliminary evaluation of the entire course of 
study in a given subject is necessary, in order that the 


SUPERVISED STUDY 173 


LESSON PLAN — SOCIAL STUDIES 


History — Grocrapuy — Crvics 






Sree ee SS Re 8 Cl ee NA AA Nee OS 8:10) (8 Be Oe fel 6) i ee Sok SORE wee) 6 @ 6) 8 el ele 


PROCEDURE ConTENT 


CuRRENT Events 


Review 
Oral 
Period 














Assignment 


| General 
Assignment 






Extra 
Assignment 









Remarks 


Fiaure 5. Intustratine a Day’s Lesson UNDER SUPERVISED STUDY 


174 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


teacher may determine which topics are of greater and which 
of less importance, and adjust time allotments accordingly. 
Through such a survey the course of study is also analyzed 
with reference to its thought values, its skill values, and its 
appreciative values, so that the teacher knows in advance 
where the problem-study method is appropriate, where re- 
petitive drill exercises are necessary, and where the red- 
letter day offers an enjoyable climax. 

Following upon general evaluation and preview comes the 
organization of lesson units. ‘This implies daily lesson plan- 
ning. Effective teaching, economy of time, and absence of 
strain in the classroom are all contingent upon the prepara- 
tion of the teacher for his day’s work. Preparation involves 
not only a thorough knowledge of content, but a careful ad- 
justment of method to emphasize the specific values of a 
given unit, and to utilize to the very best advantage all the 
time available for the lesson. Where a printed plan sheet or 
a plan book is used, the writing of plans is somewhat simpli- 
fied. For the most part teachers welcome the plan sheet for 
their own use, if supervisory stress is not laid upon form and 
detail in the writing out of lessons. A convenient plan for a 
day’s lesson under the supervised study method is indicated 
in Figure 5. 

Supervised study in relation to the pupil. If the super- 
vised study method is successfully applied, it should result 
in the formation by the pupil of right habits of study, and a 
consequent increase in power to attack new problems inde- 
pendently. The systematic conduct of each lesson, the clear- 
cut aim for each day’s investigation, and the proportion- 
ate relation between the amount of time available and the 


SUPERVISED STUDY 175 


amount of work to be done, are all indirect factors in the 
establishment of good working procedures. In addition to 
this day-by-day use of right study processes, how to study is 
made a matter of direct consideration in connection with 
specific subjects, and the class works out codperatively its 
own directions for the silent-study period. In many schools 
such directions are provided in printed form, and distributed 
among the pupils at the beginning of the term. It is prefer- 
able, however, to let the class evolve, under teacher leader- 
ship, its own how-to-study guides, since the logical procedure 
in studying a lesson is thus brought more forcibly into the 
foreground of consciousness. The following are typical 
“how to study” directions, resulting from class discussions, 


GENERAL How-to-Stupy DrirEcTIoNns 
. Have your materials ready and in good condition. 
. Understand just what your problem is. 
. Start without delay. 
Hold your mind to the lesson until the work is finished. 


He CO tO 


How to Work PROBLEMS IN MATHEMATICS 


. Read the entire problem. 

. Re-read it, listing on paper what is given and what is required. 
. Solve the problem without interrupting yourself at any point. 
. Ask yourself the question, “‘Is my answer reasonable?” 

. Prove your work if possible. 


Gr bh O9 ~ ee 


How To Srupy a History Lesson 


. Be sure that you understand the assignment problem. 

. Read the entire lesson through once. 

. Pick out its important points with reference to the problem. 
. Question yourself about the lesson. 

Re-read important parts. 

Read what another history has to say on the subject. 

. Summarize the lesson by telling yourself its main facts. 

. Ask yourself, ‘‘Have I reached a conclusion concerning the 
problem?” 


CO ~2 SD Or B 09 TO 


176 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


How-to-Stupy DrrEctTIons FoR WRITTEN CoMPposITION ! 


The ‘‘ Write”? Procedure 
1. Collect your material: 
See 
Ready! Converse 
Read 
Think 
2. Make an outline (pencil). 
Get set! 43 Write a first draft (pencil). 
4. Read and correct your first draft, 
Go! f Make a finished copy (ink), 
6. Read your final copy. 


The true test of any teaching method is the extent to 
which it makes the individual independent of help and super- 
vision. ‘The supervised study method with its stress upon 
self activity, its direct and indirect efforts to lead pupils con- 
sciously to follow logical thought-processes, and its encour- 
agement of concentrated work through emphasis upon time 
relations, is a transitional training-process directed toward 
the development of self-confidence and power in all students. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. What principles of the supervised study method can be used to ad- 
vantage when pupils, for administrative reasons, are obliged to pre- 
pare their lessons at home? 

g. Under the Herbartian lesson plan the teacher stated the aim of the 
lesson to the class. Criticize the procedure and suggest a better 
method. 

3. Discuss the value of outlining as a study process in connection with 
content subjects, such as the social studies. 

4. Starch suggests three types of studying: (1) the reading type; (2) the 
laboratory type; (3) the analytical or reasoning type. (Educational 
Psychology, p. 179.) Discuss this analysis of study processes. 

5. Discuss the following statement: “‘The work of the school is properly 
to supervise and direct the individual while he teaches himself.’’ 


1 Hatfield, W. W., and McGregor, A. L., English in Service, Book 1, p. 162. 
By permission of Doubleday, Page and Company. 


CHAPTER XIV 
SOCIALIZED PROCEDURE IN THE CLASSROOM 


The class as a social group. Learning for learning’s sake is 
no longer a prime objective of the school. Education, in 
both its cultural and its utilitarian aspects, aims at the social 
usefulness of the individual. Until comparatively recent 
years, however, social values have been considered as neces- 
sarily deferred values. Children were to be educated in or- 
der that when adulthood was finally reached they might be 
worthy of the society of which they found themselves a part. 
The psychological fact was disregarded that, in normal cir- 
cuinstances, modes of conduct and attitudes of mind are 
evolved from the daily experiences and reactions of the indi- 
vidual, and are not the sudden release into action of forceful 
impressions passively retained in childish minds for use 
when manhood arrives. 

So long as education was considered a storing-up process, 
the ideal educative situation was that of the tutor and the 
single pupil. Class instruction was looked upon as the com- 
promise of democracy with the necessity of uplifting the 
masses. That the bringing together of many children for in- 
structional purposes created a social situation which might 
in itself be educative never entered the minds of teachers a 
few decades ago. Instead, every effort was made to reduce 
the schoolroom to an individualistic basis. A stern disci- 
plinary régime attempted to impose upon each child the rule 
of silence and immobility. The teacher prepared and pre- 
sented certain facts to be learned by the pupils, and the sole 


178 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


duty of each pupil was to accept without question what was 
thus brought to his attention and to be ready to reproduce 
the given information at call. His own success in so doing 
was his chief concern, and pupils were pitted against one an- 
other in competition for high marks. Mutual helpfulness in 
the accomplishment of common tasks was banned, and any- 
thing that verged upon an interchange of ideas was sup- 
pressed as a breach of discipline. Since such a system inevi- 
tably discouraged initiative, regimentation and standardiza- 
tion resulted rather than individual development. 

With the realization that education is behavioristic, that it 
is essentially experience translating itself into thought and 
action, the desirability of utilizing social tendencies and let- 
ting social values emerge in the classroom environment be- 
comes apparent. Participation and codperation are funda- 
mental attitudes to be developed through the daily inter- 
course of children in their work and play. Individual effort 
and investigation are motivated, not by a desire to surpass all 
others, but by a willingness to make worthy contribution to 
the common undertaking of the class. Results attained 
may eventually be rated by the teacher, but it is of greater 
importance that the products of study are to be submitted for 
judgment and comment to the members of a group codpera- 
tively engaged upon a given piece of work. Nor does the ac- 
tion and reaction of one personality upon another produce a 
disciplinary situation subversive of order and direction. So- 
cialized procedure offers the natural outlet for natural social 
impulses which, under the repression of a formal régime in 
the schoolroom, were too often transmuted into undesirable 
hidden activities. 


SOCIALIZED CLASSROOM PROCEDURE 179 


Socialization of the content of studies. The socialized les- 
son is not a special type of lesson, having a definite series of 
steps laid out according to precept and rule. It is rather a 
recognition by both teacher and students of the fact that 
they are co-workers, striving together for the satisfaction 
that accompanies intellectual achievement when interest is 
strongly engaged. The truly socialized lesson centers about 
a content of recognized social worth. Experience, not mere 
collection of facts, is the great educative force. Studies are 
socially valuable because they permit a vicarious reliving of 
the past, as in history; a rediscovery of unvarying truth, as 
in mathematics; an understanding of the natural environ- 
ment, as in science; and an emotionalized and idealized con- 
tact with the romance and tragedy of life, as in literature. 
The social situation heightens the sense of actually passing 
through new experiences in the classroom. It is humanly de- 
sirable to communicate with others concerning our prob- 
lems, discoveries, and satisfactions, and by such communica- 
tion individual attitudes are altered and individual experi- 
ences enlarged. A subject of vital interest will, almost with- 
out direction, project itself into a socialized presentation, so 
eager are pupils to talk over their ideas and arrive at a com- 
mon understanding. 

The project as a socialized content. The attempt to 
evaluate content in the light of social values generally 
leads to the use of projects in the classroom. The term 
“project” in the educative sense was originally used in con- 
nection with hand-work enterprises, but it now connotes any 
undertaking definitely purposed, planned, carried out, and 
judged as to results by the pupils themselves. An example 


180 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


of socialized activity in the carrying out of a study project 
follows. 

Out of many topics suggested in the course of study, an 
eighth-grade class decided to consider the problem: Why has 
the United States increased more rapidly in population since 
1790 than any other nation in the world? A period was taken 
to plan the work to be done, and the following outline re- 
sulted from class discussion, a pupil secretary writing it on 
the blackboard as given: 

General problem: Why has the United States increased more 
rapidly in population since 1790 than any other nation in the 
world? 

1. How do we know that this is true? 

(Look up census statistics of our own and other countries.) 

2. What are the causes of increase in population? 

(a) Increase when birth rate exceeds death rate. 
(b) Conquest of diseases. 
(c) Improved transportation and communication so that 
food supply is more constant. 
(d) Immigration. 
8. Is any other cause likely to increase population? 
(a) Movements to decrease warfare. 

4. Which of these causes most apply to the increase of popula- 

tion in the United States? 

Study procedure. Reading references were next collected, 
all pupils contributing whatever they could find that had a 
bearing upon the subject. An elected chairman then appor- 
tioned the various topics to committees of pupils, and dates 
were set for committee reports. Preparation periods were 
allowed in school, but the keen interest aroused carried over 
into library visits after school hours. On the appointed 
dates the various committees reported in any manner pre- 
ferred. In some cases the chairman of a committee pre- 


SOCIALIZED CLASSROOM PROCEDURE 181 


sented a combined report; in others, all members took part. 
Following each report questions were asked freely by the 
other pupils, and the work of each committee was finally 
judged by the class as to accuracy, completeness, and interest. 
A keen zest for study and research always accompanies 
pupil-planned activities, and the social aspect of the entire 
procedure holds each member of the class up to his highest 
standard of achievement. ‘The failure of any pupil to do his 
part halts the progress of the entire group. The situation re- 
quires responsibility and group coéperation, and these qual- 
ities thus receive the emphasis derived from social sanction. 
It is not to be inferred, however, that all socialized lessons 
are necessarily of the project-problem type. The acquisi- 
tion of a mechanical skill (legible penmanship, for example, 
or speed in silent reading) may have real social worth as 
a necessary means to further experience. The class then 
socializes the activities of acquisition by devising its own 
drills and devices for securing improvement. The ingenuity 
which pupils display in discovering new ways of making 
practice periods interesting is illuminating to the teacher, and 
suggestive of untapped sources of originality and initiative. 
Socialization of the lesson form. With the shift in educa- 
tional thought from the teacher and what he should do to the 
pupil and what he does, has come the belief that any monop- 
oly of the teaching situation by the teacher alone is a check 
to the self-activity of the pupils. ‘The true teacher is not in- 
terested in a type of training which produces citizens who 
are capable only of executing the orders of others. In most 
of the deliberative situations, whether trivial or significant, 
in which the individual finds himself, there is no one to give 


182 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


directions. He must accept that responsibility himself. The 
wise teacher, therefore, does not assume all leadership in his 
class nor rest content with mere obedience to command. He 
seeks to share with the children his directive activities. The 
carrying-out of the lesson is frequently entrusted to pupil 
leaders, judges, and chart keepers who become responsible for 
its ultimate success. The pupil-leadership aspect of the 
socialized recitation has attracted much attention among 
teachers, but it is unwise to infer that the mere handing over 
of the conduct of a lesson to a pupil director insures social ac- 
tivity. The pupil leader may usurp dictatorial powers and re- 
duce the lesson to an entirely formal question-and-answer 
procedure. Such a leader must be trained to feel that the oc- 
casion is an opportunity for him to show, not how much he 
knows himself, but to what extent he can call out the best ef- 
forts of his classmates and at the same time keep the discus- 
sion to the point. While leadership tends to become a prerog- 
ative of the brighter pupils in the class, the opportunity to 
undertake its responsibilities should be frequently shifted be- 
cause of the training-values which it affords. 

Socialization of the form of the lesson usually means in- 
creased interest in its content, even though this has lost the 
freshness of new material. For this reason it offers an excel- 
lent device for review purposes. Sometimes parliamentary 
procedure is desirable and sometimes it proves a hampering 
form, but courteous discussion and questioning from the 
floor are always to be encouraged. There is danger in the 
use of the socialized lesson form that the brighter group of 
pupils will monopolize the discussion and that the slower 
pupils will be entirely submerged. There may also develop 
a tendency toward quibbling and over-questioning. In 


SOCIALIZED CLASSROOM PROCEDURE 183 


either case the teacher actively assumes guidance and points 
out to the class exactly where the difficulty lies. 

The advantages of socialized procedure. Socialized pro- 
cedure means day-by-day training in the underlying princi- 
ples of helpful community living. This fact alone gives it so- 
cial and civic value as an educative process. It has certain 
pedagogical values as well. It permits of interesting variations 
in classroom activity; it lessens the disciplinary strain of the 
school situation by utilizing the play instinct as an adjunct 
to learning; and it substitutes group planning and direction 
for teacher-mandate. Essentially it substitutes for competi- 
tive and individualistic motives to excel a desire for social 
approval, and a willingness to serve the group well in order 
that such approval may be deserved. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. “The cultivation of a sense of values is absolutely essential in the 
operation of the socialized method.” Discuss this as a guiding prin- 
ciple: (a) for the teacher; (b) for the pupils. 

9. “Ina certain geography class a teacher, by actual count, put eighteen 
questions in two minutes, a rate which seemed to be habitual with 
her.’ Discuss the effect of such a recitation upon the pupils. Sug- 
gest better methods of procedure. 

3. Is it possible for pupils to determine projects for class investigation 
when the course of study is prescribed for each grade? Explain. 

4. When a socialized recitation is being conducted entirely by pupils, 
what should be the teacher’s part? 

5. What are the dangers in class criticism of individual contributions to 
the lesson? How would you overcome these difficulties? 

6. Discuss the application of the following (from Dewey) to the class- 
room situation: 

“The environment is truly educative in its effect in the degree in 
which an individual shares or participates in some conjoint activity. 
By doing his share in the associated activity, the individual appropri- 
ates the purpose which actuates it, becomes familiar with its methods 
and subject matter, acquires needed skill, and is saturated with its 
emotional spirit.” 


CHAPTER XV 


INSTRUCTIONAL DIFFERENCES CORRESPONDING 
TO ABILITY GROUPING 

Ability grouping. ‘The development of the measurement 
movement in education coincident with the spread of the 
6-3-3 type of school organization has been peculiarly advan- 
tageous to the administration of the junior high school. With 
the centralization of many students in seventh, eighth, and 
ninth grades, some method of securing beneficial grouping 
becomes imperative. Since classroom procedure must be 
Jargely a matter of mass instruction, the desirability of clas- 
sifying students with regard to homogeneous ability is gen- 
erally conceded. Grouping by ability may be secured: (1) 
through teachers’ ratings; (2) through the use of group intel- 
ligence tests; and (3) through achievement tests. 

Teachers’ ratings as a grouping basis. While it is true that 
an experienced teacher, after a few weeks of intimate, daily 
contact with his class, can rate his pupils with a fair degree 
of accuracy relative to their actual accomplishment, it is 
nevertheless true that the standards of various teachers dif- 
fer, so that the junior high school, taking children as it does 
from several contributing schools, must discount the value 
of scholastic ratings, coming from various sources, as a basis 
of group arrangement. ‘The teacher in school B may have 
generally lower standards than the teacher in school A. It 
would be unwise, therefore, to consider that pupils from 
school B having a higher rating than those from school A 


INSTRUCTIONAL DIFFERENCES 185 


naturally belong in a more rapidly moving group when they 
enter the junior high school. 

Intelligence tests as a grouping basis. The use of intelli- 
gence tests to determine class grouping is doubtless more 
scientific than the use of teachers’ ratings. Through such 
tests the mental abilities of all children about to enter the 
junior high school are measured by an objective and stand- 
ardized process. The intelligence tests fail to reveal, how- 
ever, those general habits of industry, willing codperation, 
nervous stability, etc., which are undoubted factors in school 
success. Used without other check, classification by test 
scores may result in a distribution of children into groups 
of similar mentality, but decided inequality with regard to 
school progress. 

Achievement tests as a grouping basis. The method of 
grouping by achievement tests has as its objective the classi- 
fication of students with reference to specific abilities. Rig- 
idly followed, this method may place a pupil in one group in 
English, in a different group in history, and in still another 
group in mathematics. While this would, perhaps, prove a 
more accurate classification with reference to school achieve- 
ment, it presents serious administrative difficulties which tend 
to nullify the advantages now apparent in the class unit plan. 

Combined test score and teacher rating as a grouping basis. 
That procedure in grouping seems generally most acceptable 
where a combination of the intelligence score and the teach- 
er’s estimate can be secured. The following method has 
proved satisfactory. 

In the upper sixth grade, just preceding entrance to junior 
high school, all pupils of all contributing schools are given 


186 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


a group intelligence test. The tests are administered and 
scored by trained workers, other than the teachers of the 
classes. Without a knowledge of the test scores, each 
teacher is then asked to rank his pupils on a five-point basis, 
rating as one those whom he considers excellent and as jive 
those whom he considers very poor. The teacher’s estimate 
is then made a comparable number ! with the intelligence 
score, the two are added together, and the resulting combi- 
nation score is used as a basis for grouping. These final scores 
are arranged in order from highest to lowest and counted off 
into classes of approximately forty pupils. In counting off 
pupils, chronological age is taken into account to secure 
a young-bright group, a young-slow group, and an old- 
slow group, etc. This procedure has the merit of recog- 
nizing through the teacher’s estimate those character factors 
which make for success, as well as the type of ability meas- 
ured by the intelligence test. In general, the teacher’s esti- 
mate and the intelligence score show a high degree of cor- 
relation. Cases of marked discrepancy are subject to further 
investigation and close observation. For concrete illustra- 
tions of class groupings resulting from the procedure here 
described, see Tables X, XI, XII, given on the pages which 
follow.2. (Owing to school congestion these classes entered 


1 The equivalent value of the teacher’s estimate is obtained by determin- 
ing the entire number of children marked one, counting off this number of 
scores on the intelligence rankings when arranged from highest to lowest, 
and finding the average of scores thus counted off. This average then be- 
comes the equivalent of the teacher’s rating one. Equivalents for two, three, 
four, and five are found in the same way. 

2 Used by permission of Miss Leila Martin, Director of the Department 
of Child Study, Rochester, New York, under whose direction this work is 
carried out for the junior high schools of Rochester. 


INSTRUCTIONAL DIFFERENCES 187 


TABLE X. Tracuers’ EsTIMATES AND INTELLIGENCE SCORES — 
Group I (Hien Group — Youna) 


CHRONOLOGICAL | N.I.T. | Teacumr’s | ComMBINED 


ScHooL 
ESTIMATE ScoRE 


Sophie C 
Morris M 


Joseph V 
Josephine C 


1 
1 
1 
2 
2 
1 
1 
2 
2 
1 
2 
1 
2 
2 
2 
2 
3 
2 
2 
2 
4 
2 
2 
2 
3 
2 
2 
2 
3 
3 
3 
3 
3 
2 
2 
Q 
3 
3 
3 
2 





Total number of children examined, June, 1923............0ccccccaeees 419 
Group test used — National Intelligence Test, Scale A, Median test score.. 120.3 
Teacher’s estimate in terms equivalent to N.I.T. scores: 


Leer eiicewes 161 
LINN Sioa 147 
Sreitazinn sere te 130 
Aster niaiel weaver stat tres 111 


188 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


Taste XI. Tracuers’ Estrmmates AND INTELLIGENCE SCORES — 
Group VI (AvERAGE GROUP) 


Curono.oaicaL} N.I.T. | Teacner’s | ComBrnep 
36 


Dorothy C 
Frances C 
Bennie R... 


OPP RH O®© LER KR LOH SOR LLP OP SS S oO Oo S 6O mH HS wH OO 





Total number of children examined, June, 1923.................0 ev eee 419 
Group test used — National Intelligence Test, Scale A, Median test score.. 120.3 
Teacher’s estimate in terms equivalent to N.I.T. scores: 


LS ies pes em ars 161 
Bile estreve stators 147 
ial yeas sa ceNcl aval 130 
Bets Tee lance et ates 111 


INSTRUCTIONAL DIFFERENCES 189 


TasBie XII. Tracuers’ Estimates AND INTELLIGENCE SCORES — 
Group X (Low Grour — Op) 


Josephine D 

Sylvia S 
WichaelsPenvasee ss Be: 
Santina L 


5 
5 
5 
4 
5 
5 
5 
5 
4 
5 
5 
5 
5 
5 
5 
4 
4 
5 
4 
5 
4 
5 
5 
5 
5 
5 
5 
5 
5 
5 
5 
5 
5 
5 





Total number of children examined, June, 1923............cceeccecceee 419 
Group test used — National Intelligence Test, Scale A, Median test score.. 120.3 
Teacher’s estimate in terms equivalent to N.I.T. scores: 


bP eS Ate 161 
Rides ve kaw gs 4 147 
Shiai aisicg & sees LOO 
GT lake neta 111 


199 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


junior high school in the upper term of the seventh grade 
rather than in the lower term.) 

Instructional differences corresponding to ability groups. 
Grouping by ability, however perfected in technic and ad- 
ministration, will prove a useless expenditure of time and 
money if the classes thus arranged are one and all expected 
to cover exactly the same courses of study in exactly the 
same amount of time. The next problem that emerges in 
this connection is the problem of corresponding instructional 
difference. In the case of three hundred children grouped 
into eight classes, one class will be very bright and one above 
average; one class will be very dull and one slow; and the 
remaining classes will be of average ability with reference to 
a given course of study. By what procedures shall the 
school take advantage of the roughly homogeneous group- 
ings resulting from classification methods to capitalize the 
superior intelligence of Groups I and II, and to encourage 
and develop as far as possible the inferior abilities of Groups 
VII and VIII? The proper solution of this problem can 
only be a matter of long experimentation, but several pos- 
sible adaptations are already in practical application. 

Adaptations for low-mentality groups. The usual method 
of dealing with the low-mentality pupil in the non-homo- 
geneous group has been that of retardation by failure, with 
all its attendant evils — discouragement, over-age ad- 
justment, and early elimination. Needless to say, such a 
course with entire groups of thirty or forty pupils would be 
not only reprehensible but well-nigh impossible. On the 
other hand, time is doubtless a factor in the eventual success 
of the slow pupil. 


INSTRUCTIONAL DIFFERENCES 19} 


One method of answering the question, “‘ What shall we do 
with low-range classes?”’ lies, therefore, in the organization of 
the special class which deliberately plans, not the failure 
of the class at the end of the term and the consequent repeti- 
tion of an entire unit of work, but rather the slower develop- 
ment of the unit of work over a longer period of time. Such 
classes usually plan to take three terms for the accomplish- 
ment of a year’s work. This procedure, while comparatively 
simple of application, presupposes that, given a sufficient 
amount of time, every pupil will be able to cover in satis- 
factory fashion an identical course of study — a position not 
entirely tenable. 

A second method of meeting the slow-group problem lies in 
the application of the stripped program. Where this plan is 
followed, only the basic promotional subjects are included in 
the daily schedule of the low-mentality classes, and the work 
of the afternoon practically duplicates that of the morning. 
This procedure in effect doubles the time available for the 
fundamental subjects without lengthening the total time 
spent in the junior high school. It is open, however, to the 
objection cited with reference to the preceding plan, and is 
further undesirable in that it deprives the slow pupils of 
those very hand-work experiences in which their ultimate 
success in life must be sought, and of those cultural and 
sesthetic experiences, such as music and art, which should 
enrich the lives of all. The stripped program plan lays 
undue stress upon purely scholastic objectives. 

A third method of dealing with slow classes is based upon 
the working-out of minimum courses of study to be covered 
in the usual time. ‘This procedure seems to be the most 


192 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


logical solution of the problem, since it recognizes limitation 
of capacity as well as limitation of rate of learning. Its 
practical difficulties lie in the determination of basic mini- 
mum essentials. It would seem not an impossible task, 
however, for expert teachers, in the light of past experience, 
to devise by consensus of opinion minimum courses which 
would contain the necessary and accepted fundamentals of 
given studies, and yet be possible of successful accomplish- 
ment by the mentally inferior. 

It should be said, furthermore, that the utmost care must 
be exercised in the guidance and placement, both educa- 
tionally and vocationally, of the slow-mentality pupils. 
Those of high or average mentality, as a general thing, pos- 
sess by virtue of intelligence itself a greater power of adapt- 
ability or adjustment with reference to their environment. 
The misplaced low-mentality child, on the other hand, fails 
to initiate necessary changes in his course or in his job be- 
cause he fails to analyze his situation and make the necessary 
effort to remedy his own maladjustment. Some one must 
help him. Herein lies an important responsibility for the 
school counselor. 

Adaptations for high-mentality groups. Two methods for 
dealing with classes above average in mentality are of gen- 
eral interest to educators, namely, acceleration and enrich- 
ment. 

Acceleration. It is fair to concede that the older bright 
group in a mentality series of eight classes may safely be 
accelerated, at least to the extent of completing the work 
of the junior high school in two and one half instead of in 
three years. Plans for acceleration differ, but in general 


INSTRUCTIONAL DIFFERENCES 193 


it has been found advisable to secure the advance prior 
to the eighth grade, where choice of course is usually made. 
In the Washington Junior High School at Rochester, New 
York, the forty children of this group complete their seventh 
year in one term, or in one term with an added six weeks of 
summer school. These children then choose their differen- 
tiated courses. Careful observation of their progress shows 
that they maintain their high ratings and give no evidence 
of over-strain or poorer quality of accomplishment. The 
objection to acceleration has usually been made from the 
viewpoint of the social situation resulting. An over-bright 
child, rapidly accelerated, finds himself in a group with which, 
by age, interests, and maturity of judgment, he is quite out 
of touch. This may be true of the occasional case of accel- 
eration, but when acceleration is accomplished by groups 
rather than by individuals, as may easily be brought about 
in a junior high school because of the large numbers of chil- 
dren in any one grade, the social objection has little validity. 

Enrichment. The possibility of enrichment as a solution 
of the problem of the very bright meets with no opposition. 
Enrichment may lie within a given course of study by the 
addition of extra topics for development and discussion; or 
it may be secured within the program of studies by lessening 
the number of hours per week allotted to some of the sub- 
jects in a curriculum in order to obtain time for other types 
of training. A high-mentality class, for example, may have 
its work in English enriched by prescribed extra readings, or 
it may recite only three times a week in English (as com- 
pared with the normal five periods per week) and thus save 
two periods to be devoted to shop, typewriting, or another 


194 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


language. ‘The first procedure necessitates preliminary dis- 
cussion and agreement among all the members of a depart- 
ment as to the additional topics to be used. This means, in 
effect, the making of maximum courses of study representing 
a consensus of opinion, rather than the ingenuity of an 
individual teacher. ‘The second type of procedure involves 
administrative preparation in the schedule for the addi- 
tional training to be elected by the members of the bright 
group. 

Classroom adaptations with regard to ability grouping. It 
is quite true that not only must units of subject-matter be 
determined with reference to the position of a class in the 
mentality scale, but also that the methods of instruction 
must show appropriate variation. Every teacher is cog- 
nizant of the fact that the bright class and the dull class 
cannot be handled in the same way, even though the same 
topic is being taught to both. Analysis and resulting judg- 
ments are the chief elements of the problem for the high- 
mentality group; mere acquisition is a difficulty for a low- 
mentality group. ‘The very bright will receive better train- 
ing through the attack upon a broad problem; the slow must 
have their problems for study reduced to the simplest and 
most pointed terms. 

This is not to say that mere association without analysis 
is all that shall be expected of the dull. It implies, rather, 
that while the bright group, brought face to face with a new 
problem, will be able with a little guidance to untangle its 
intricacies for themselves, and reduce the whole to simpler 
parts to be attacked one by one in logical order, the slow 
pupils will, on the other hand, have to deal with each part as 


INSTRUCTIONAL DIFFERENCES 195 


a major problem, finally synthesizing the whole, with the 
teacher’s aid, into a comparatively simple and limited group 
of associated ideas. 

The following lesson summaries will illustrate, to some 
extent, variation in the treatment of a given topic to cor- 
respond with the mental ability of the group concerned with 
its mastery. 


SUMMARY OF A LEssoNn In History witH A HicH-MENTALITY 
GRoUP 


Review: Governor Dale’s division of land in Virginia and its 
results. 

The topic was reviewed in a socialized discussion 
conducted by a pupil chairman. 

Assignment: From a discussion of successful and unsuccessful 
crops in the new colony the children were led to state 
the following problem for study: 

New Problem: How did tobacco culture affect the 
early history of Virginia? 

Codéperative analysis by the class reduced the 
main problem to the following subordinate problems, 
which were written on the blackboard under the 
original problem: 

What created the sudden demand for tobacco? 

What is the nature of the plant? 

What were the results of its cultivation upon: 

(1) Population? 
(2) Commerce? 
(3) Labor? 

(4) Social Life? 
(5) Government? 

Silent Study: The pupils consulted two histories and a students’ 
reference book. More rapid readers used, in addi- 
tion to their texts, Fiske’s Old Virginia and Her 
Neighbours, Cooke’s Stories of the Old Dominion, and 
Coffin’s Old Times in the Colonies, copies of which 
were available in the room. 


196 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


SUMMARY OF A LESSON IN History witH A Low-MENTALITY 
GROUP 


Review: Governor Dale’s division of land in Virginia and its 
results. 

Questions written by the pupils the previous day 
(under the teacher’s supervision) were used to guide 
the discussion. 

Assignment: The teacher described a large farm, and showed the 
children pictures of far-stretching fields. Life on a 
farm was discussed. ‘The term plantation was then 
introduced. The teacher showed the pupils a state- 
ment in their text which said: “Another result of 
tobacco culture was the development of large plan- 
tations.” The children suggested the following 
problems for study: 

Why did Virginia have plantations? 
How was the work done on the plantations? 
How did the people live on the plantation? 

Silent Study: Half of the class used one history text, while the other 
half studied from a second text. Children who 
finished before the end of the silent-study period 
were allowed to group themselves in pairs, each child 
showing the other what he had found of interest, 
with reference to the problem, in the history which 
he was using. 


Instruction in non-homogeneous groups. There remains 
for consideration the matter of classroom procedure in the 
non-homogeneous group. In junior high schools where 
choice is made among differentiated courses at the beginning 
of the eighth year, it frequently happens that all the children 
choosing a given course must be placed in the same class, 
regardless of mentality rating, because not enough pupils 
have elected a given course to warrant the formation of 
more than one class. 

Teachers of such a group are face to face with a complex 


INSTRUCTIONAL DIFFERENCES 197 


problem. They must utilize to the fullest extent the initia- 
tive and mental power of the very bright, and stimulate and 
develop the more limited abilities of the slow. Topical en- 
richment through the use of differentiated minimum and 
maximum assignments affords the best compromise with 
this situation. Occasionally the teacher will have to resort 
to the special teaching of small groups within the class. 
Even though classification cannot always follow upon men- 
tality determination, the teacher who knows the relative 
mental rankings of his pupils is in a position to administer 
more intelligently the various methods and procedures of 
instruction. For this reason it is desirable to secure the 
ability-ratings of all the pupils in a given group, even though 
some other factor must receive first consideration in the 
assignment of pupils to a particular class. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. Secure a copy of a local course of study in arithmetic for the eighth 
grade. Show how you would amplify it for a bright group and sim- 
plify it for a slow group. Do the same with a course in geography for 
the seventh grade. 

2. What procedure would you suggest in the case of Salvatore A. 
(see Table X, page 187) whose intelligence rating is high, but whose 
teacher estimate is low? 

3. What arguments would you use with a parent who objected to the 
classification of his child in a low group? 

4. Should the teachers of a school be made aware of the rankings of their 
respective grades in the mentality series? Give reasons for your 
answer. 

5. Should teachers be made aware of the intelligence test scores of indi- 
vidual pupils in their classes? Give reasons for your answer. 

6. Prepare a lesson on any topic for a group that is not homogeneously 
classified as to intelligence. Indicate the special provisions which you 
would make to meet the range of individual differences. 


CHAPTER XVI 
FAILURE PREVENTION 


Administrative difficulties resulting from pupilfailure. One 
of the chief problems confronting teachers and adminis- 
trators in city school systems is that of failure prevention. 
If in a given city the average failure increment each term is 
eleven per cent of the total school population, provision for 
necessary equipment, space, and teaching force to accom- 
modate retardates must appear as a considerable item of 
expense. The junior high school principal finds his organi- 
zation affected in another way by the presence therein of 
failure pupils. Since subject promotion is an accepted pro- 
cedure in the junior high school, subject failures must be 
taken care of through parallel classes in the schedule. A 
child who is obliged to repeat seventh-grade English, for 
example, will be one term behind in English throughout his 
two remaining years in the school, and must be constantly 
accommodated, therefore, by English classes of lower grade 
paralleled to the one he should normally attend with his 
group. With three or four subjects considered as promotion 
subjects, and the failures in each one demanding considera- 
tion, it becomes evident that, unless something is done, the 
entire schedule of classes will presently be dictated by the 
needs of the failure pupils — obviously an undesirable situa- 
tion. 

Mental and moral effects of failure. More pressing than 
the economic and administrative difficulties attendant upon 


FAILURE PREVENTION 199 


failure are the mental and moral effects of failure upon the 
pupils retarded. Failure is depressing, humiliating to the 
personality. ‘The fear of failure may sometimes act as a 
spur to increased activity, but failure itself, untouched by 
inspiration from some other source, has never resulted in 
later conspicuous achievement. The wise man will analyze 
his failures to avoid their repetition, but he never thinks of 
them with any glow of satisfaction. In the learning process, 
the feeling of successful accomplishment establishes a bond 
between effort and result. Success is a stimulus to further 
effort. 

It has long been known that failure to make normal prog- 
ress is one of the chief causes of early school leaving. The 
pupil who is constantly brought face to face with failure 
ratings on his report card cannot be blamed for taking him- 
self out of an environment which stamps him perpetually as 
below par. ‘The school which prides itself upon maintain- 
ing a high standard by the establishment of a single, arbi- 
trary promotion level, and by the rigid exclusion from its 
courses of those who fail to reach that level, has forgotten its 
mission in a democracy. Children have a right to the en- 
couragement resulting from success, and that school will be 
doing the most for society which tries, by careful grouping, 
differentiated work, and intensive study of individual needs, 
to keep its children in a success atmosphere. The attitude 
of mind which attacks all problems with a hopeful expecta- 
tion of satisfactory accomplishment is a valuable asset for 
any individual. Self-confidence is a prerequisite of self- 
respect, and self-respect is fundamental to noble citizenship. 

The school cannot afford, however, to lower its standards 


200 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


indefinitely for the sake of raising its promotion record. 
Sound scholarship must prevail if the school is to keep the 
respect of the community. How then can non-promotion be 
prevented? Only after an analysis of the causes of failure 
can remedial measures be prescribed. 

Relation of ability growping to failure prevention. Suitable 
ability grouping, with corresponding instructional differ- 
ences, will in itself tend to eliminate failure. The absurd 
situation which required that every one of the pupils at a 
given grade-level cover exactly the same course of study in 
the same length of time, regardless of wide gradations in 
native ability, was a prolific source of failure and consequent 
school leaving. With the careful adaptation of courses to 
correspond with intelligence groupings, failure is no longer 
the foreordained fate of the mentally slow. Nor does the 
adaptation of content and method to meet the needs of the 
child mean the general lowering of school standards. A 
standard is lowered, for example, if the promotion mark of 
seventy-five per cent is suddenly reduced to sixty per cent 
for the same work. In the administration of minimum and 
maximum courses, the same standard of excellence may be 
maintained within the materials outlined. Less work or a 
different kind of work will be required of the dull class, but 
what is accomplished will be well done. 

Causes of failure. There are many causes of failure 
operative in a large school that are in their very nature 
remediable. It will be well to consider these somewhat in 
detail. 

1. Absence from school. Absence must be recognized as a 
prolific cause of non-promotion. ‘The protracted type of 


FAILURE PREVENTION 201 


absence due to personal illness or unusual family difficulty 
is, on the whole, not so serious an obstacle to school progress 
as that irregularity of attendance which is a notable problem 
in large cities, and especially among our foreign populations. 
The child who misses a complete unit of work knows exactly 
what he has lost; and with teacher assistance, home study, 
summer school, or opportunity-class attendance he can usu- 
ally recover lost ground. The child who is out of school now 
and again, a half day this week and a whole day the next, 
never obtains a well-rounded, closely associated, thoroughly 
articulated body of knowledge. His information is gener- 
ally vague, his ideas confused, and his mental state one of 
helpless bewilderment. The advantages otherwise afforded 
through efficient administration and expert teaching are 
nullified, with many pupils, by the failure of parents to insure 
daily attendance on the part of their children. 

Active publicity campaigns in the school and in the com- 
munity, home visits, and pressure for rigid enforcement of 
the compulsory education laws can alone remedy this evil. 
In many schools the problem of irregular attendance is a 
constant source of discouragement and annoyance to the 
teachers. ‘Those who criticize the product of the American 
school system little know how much time and effort have to 
be expended merely to secure the daily presence in school of 
the very children who are in greatest need of education. 

2. Change of school. Another cause of failure and re- 
tardation lies in frequent change of school. In all large 
cities a section of the population may be classed as migra- 
tory. This group includes not only those who move from 
town to town in search of work or better living conditions, 


202 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL | 


but also those who move about within the city, as one cir- 
cumstance or another renders it necessary for them to rent 
in another district. The following table will indicate how 
largely the factor of change of school is present in a typical 
group of seventh-grade junior high school pupils. 


TaBLE XIII. IntustrRatiInc FREQUENCY OF CHANGE OF SCHOOL 


NuMBER oFr SCHOOLS 
ATTENDED PREVIOUS 
To JuNiIoR HicH GrabDE A | GrapE B | Grapg C |Grapt D} Grape E |} Grape F 
ScHoot ENTRANCE 


One school 12 pupils | 12 pupils | 16 pupils 
Two schools >; 1 OS Sac. 9 
Three schools 4 
Four schools 3 
Five schools 

Six schools 


6 pupils | 18 pupils | 14 pupils 
6s 9 ee 


6é 





Total number ofs pupils eonsidereds i aacedcvcus else cewicleoie ee ects ste cette 187 
Per cent of pupils attending only one school. ...........eeceecceccecces 41.7 
Per cent of pupils attending more than one school..............eeeceeee 58.2 


While the condition during the three years of junior high 
school attendance would tend to be somewhat more stable 
than that indicated in Table XIII, the presence of this 
factor of change must receive serious consideration as one of 
the possible causes of failure to make normal grade-to-grade 
progress. 

Sometimes change from school to school is made easily 
and with little disturbance; more frequently maladjustments 
result. In general, pupils who are threatened with term 
failure because of transfer between schools need only some 
individual assistance from a special teacher to start them on 
the road to success. ‘The background is there, but changes 


FAILURE PREVENTION 208 


in method, nomenclature, texts, and even in physical and 
social surroundings make their path difficult until they are 
thoroughly at home in their new environment. A few hours 
in an opportunity class will usually help these children to 
adjust themselves to their work. Locating the cause of 
their difficulties is the chief step toward solving their 
problem. 

3. Wrong attitude. There remains for consideration tne 
factor of wrong attitude, with its adverse influence upon 
school success. Wrong attitude may take the form of care- 
less irresponsibility resulting from immaturity, or it may be 
present as an active, disturbing element, willfully setting 
itself against necessary regulation. In the first case strong, 
counteracting incentives are necessary. Lessons must be 
made intrinsically interesting, school honors must be estab- 
lished, ambition must be aroused. Earnest commendation 
for good work, and steady insistence upon the re-performance 
of poor work, will eventually create a standard of mastery 
that will spur on the lazy and indifferent. The use of stand- 
ard scales in spelling, penmanship, arithmetic, reading, and 
composition is strongly recommended as a means of setting 
up objective goals which in themselves act as incentives. 
Even the irresponsible pupil responds to the challenge to 
better his own record. 

The type of wrong attitude which is active in its resistance 
to the school régime is known to all teachers. Almost every 
class contains one or two disciplinary problems that con- 
stantly menace the progress of the whole group. It some- 
times happens that the troublesome pupils are among the 
brighter members of the group, and so are in little danger 


204 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


themselves of retardation. Here the problem becomes one 
of management only. When to a disturbing tendency are — 
coupled indifference and mediocre ability, the pupil is a can- 
didate for non-promotion. 

Probably non-promotion is the true discipline of conse- 
quences. Certainly the interests of a class of forty pupils 
cannot be jeopardized for one. Exclusion from the group, 
with a consequent loss of work even to the point of failure, is 
the legitimate outcome of constant misconduct, and should 
be so upheld before parents and before the school commu- 
nity at large. This mode of treatment is negative, however, 
and no method of constructive and remedial value must be 
left untried. Sometimes change of course is desirable if an 
absorbing interest results. ‘The active coéperation of the 
home can frequently be enlisted especially in the face of 
impending non-promotion. Delegated responsibility may 
sometimes bring about a change of attitude which will re- 
flect itself in better school work. 

The type of pupil here described is always a challenge to a 
teacher’s personality and power. If the teacher succeeds in 
bringing the pupil to a codperative state of mind, he may 
congratulate himself. If all his efforts fail to secure re- 
sponse, on the other hand, he need not be over-conscientious 
in imputing failure to himself. It would be strange indeed if, 
in a large school which daily houses a population equivalent 
to that of a village, every personality that emerged in the 
school group proved amenable to the school control and 
discipline. ‘The school well may be proud of its unceasing 
and untiring efforts to win over the recalcitrant, even though 
its efforts are not always crowned with success. 


FAILURE PREVENTION 205 


Remedial measures for failure prevention. In the fore- 
going discussion of causes of failure, remedial measures have 
also been indicated, but it is well to take into consideration 
the special types of procedure which may be undertaken in a 
junior high school to eliminate failure and consequent re- 
tardation. 

1. Study-coach organization. A study-coach organization 
is designed to help retarded pupils make up units of work in 
which they have failed, and to enable them eventually to 
regain their normal classes. It also offers assistance to 
pupils who have attained promotion, but who show pro- 
nounced failure tendencies during the succeeding term. 
There should be at least one study-coach teacher for each 
of the basic promotion subjects of the seventh and eighth 
grades. Ninth-grade pupils, as a general thing, must de- 
pend upon outside tutors, night school, or summer school 
when they fall behind in their work, because of the intrinsic 
difficulty of paralleling their many differentiated promotion 
subjects with a study-coach schedule. 

Failure pupils are assigned to a study-coach teacher on 
an extra time basis. If their normal program calls for five 
periods of mathematics, for example, in the study-coach 
department they should be allowed seven or eight periods in 
order that they may review the work of the preceding term 
and overtake the class which they wish to reénter. Extra 
time is obtained by omitting shop, music, and drawing 
temporarily. The study-coach teacher proceeds on the 
assumption that, although the children are not utterly ig- 
norant of the work of their failure term, there are certain 
points of difficulty, “apt-to-fail”” points, which must be 


906 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


re-covered with all failure pupils, and certain individual 
stumbling-blocks which must be discovered and overcome 
by close observation of each pupil. As soon as any individ- 
ual is abreast of his class he is returned to it. This in itself 
is a strong incentive to put forth the utmost effort. 

2. The unassigned teacher. Ina small junior high school, 
where the number of failures does not warrant the establish- 
ment of a study-coach department, an unassigned teacher 
may be of great assistance in preventing failure. It is the 
duty of this teacher to work with individuals or small groups 
sent to him from the regular classes for special assistance. 
This work is practically tutoring under school direction. It 
is a very effective way of providing for the child who has 
lost a unit of subject-matter because of continued absence, or 
for the child who needs more individual explanation and 
supervision in the attack upon a new problem than the 
teacher of the regular class has time to give. The unas- 
signed teacher must be familiar with the content of all pro- 
motion subjects so that he may give any type of assistance 
required, and he must in addition perfect a technique of 
leading pupils to help themselves. 

The summer school. Summer vacation classes for re- 
tardates, held during a period of six weeks with half-day ses- 
sions, are an effective means of overcoming non-promotion, 
and are, on the whole, less expensive than general repetition. 
Only needed classes will be established, and only failure 
pupils and doubtful promotions urged to attend. Classes 
are thus kept small and legitimate remedial assistance can 
be effectively rendered. One teacher may handle several 
grades of work in the same subject, but, in order that stand- 


FAILURE PREVENTION 207 


ards may not differ, it is desirable that summer school 
teachers be chosen from the regular faculty of the school 
itself. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. Examine the following term records and suggest factors which might 
have been operative to cause the failures indicated: 
Rating system: A = excellent; B = above average; C = average; 
D = poor; E = failure 


Pupil M Pupil P Pupil X Pupil Y 


English....... C B E E 
History 0). 8 E B E E 
Mathematics.. <A E D E 


2. Suggest as many procedures as possible that will tend to prevent three 
foreign children of average mentality in a given grade from failing in 
English. 

8. In what ways will the methods of the unassigned teacher differ from 
those of the classroom teacher? 

4, What are the advantages and disadvantages of a summer session of 
school for all pupils who wish to come? 

5. What would you say to a parent whose child was failing for disciplin- 
ary reasons, and who objected to his exclusion from the classroom? 

6. Outline in detail a publicity campaign for your community to awaken 
parents to the necessity for regular daily attendance. 


SELECTED REFERENCES FOR PART I 


Ayres, L. P. Laggards in Our Schools. (1909.) 

Dewey, J. How We Think. (1910.) 

Earhart, L. B. Teaching Children to Study. (1909.) 

Goddard, H. H. School Training of Defective Children. (1914.) 

Hall-Quest, A. L. Supervised Study. (1916.) 

Hines, H. C. A Guide to Educational Measurements. (1923.) 

McGregor, A. L. Supervised Study in English. (1922.) 

McMurry, F. M. How to Study. (1909.) 

Miller, H. L. Directing Study. (1922.) 

Simpson, M. E. Supervised Study in History. (1918.) 

Terman, L. M. The Intelligence of School Children. (1919.) 

Terman, L. M. The Measurement of Intelligence. (1916.) 

Whipple, G. M. Classes for Gifted Children. (1921.) 

Whipple, G. M., e¢ al. The Education of Gifted Children. The Twenty- 
Third Yearbook, National Society for the Study of Education. (1924.) 


PART Ii 
SOCIALIZATION 


CHAPTER XVII 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY 


The school as life experience. ‘The school exists in order 
that the accumulated knowledge, the standards, and the 
ideals of society may be transmitted to the rising generation 
to become the basis of departure for new accomplishment, 
for constructive social change, and for the establishment of 
finer codes and higher ideals. In thus assuming for society 
the task of mterpreting the past to msure progress in the 
future, the school faces a serious danger. Life is lived in the 
present. At any stage in its development it is affecting and 
affected by its immediate environment. Education which 
has its eye solely upon the past or solely upon the future is 
concerning itself largely with the abstract and formal de- 
tails of knowledge, and thus setting aside, as negligible for 
its purpose, the daily educative influence of codperative 
effort and social contact. 

The school cannot prepare children for an imaginary fu- 
ture unrelated to the present and distinct from the period of 
education. Education is life, not preparation for life. Ad- 
vance is made only day by day, and the life experiences of 
the here and now are the most potent agencies for the de- 
velopment of the very traits and attitudes which shape the 
future. The spirit in which a school organization is set up, 


THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY 209 


and the purposes which it may be expected to serve in the 
daily lives of the children are, therefore, of equal educational 
importance with the various curricula and courses of study. 

The junior high school a transition school. The junior 
high school should be for its pupils a transition school. It 
should conserve as far as possible the more intimate group 
contacts of the elementary school while leading toward the 
greater freedom of the senior high school. Departmentaliza- 
tion is the intermediate step between the one-teacher plan 
and the free elective plan; but in departmentalization care 
has to be taken not to forfeit for children in early adolescence 
the values inherent in the relatively small and closely associ- 
ated group. To this end the junior high school should be 
organized on the home-room plan. 

The home-room section. The home-room section is a class 
of from thirty-five to forty pupils grouped on a basis of intel- 
ligence, or choice of course, or both. Once organized, it re- 
mains as a unit throughout the day and throughout the term. 
Each home-room section becomes the special charge of a 
home-room teacher who is also a subject teacher, but who 
assumes, in connection with the home-room class, the particu- 
lar functions of counselor, friend, and final arbiter. 

Duties of the home-room teacher. In a large school com- 
prising perhaps fifty or sixty home-room sections, most 
teachers will, of necessity, be obliged to assume home-room 
duties. The teacher as home-room director will be respon- 
sible for record keeping with regard to attendance and punc- 
tuality, and for the filling out and keeping up-to-date of the 
numerous card forms which make the effective running of a 
school city possible. These clerical details, however, are the 


210 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


least important aspects of the home-room teacher’s work. 
It is his part as guide and counselor to bring his group into 
living contact with all the ideals of the school. He must es- 
tablish the idea of cleanliness so that it functions in the de- 
tails of clean bodies, clean clothing, and clean desks and sur- 
roundings. He must be watchful of the general health and 
welfare of individuals. He must develop with the children 
high standards of effort and scholarship, and establish as a 
conscious group possession worthy ideals of conduct. Under 
his persuasive leadership, the group spirit itself will emerge 
as a strong factor for righteousness, so that a recalcitrant in- 
dividual feels immediately the censure and disapproval of 
that portion of society with which he is in closest daily con- 
tact. 

Time allotments for the home-room teacher. In order 
that these ends may be served, the home-room teacher must 
have time to meet his class in the relation of counselor. It 
is desirable, for closer acquaintance, that the home-room 
teacher should also be the subject teacher of his home-room 
section during one period of the day’s program, but it is 
equally desirable that he have further time allotted him 
when other objectives than those of subject-matter are to be 
served. Where an opening ten-minute period can be ob- 
tained at the beginning of the day, its use for home-room 
contact is especially beneficial. Short as such a period is, in 
the hands of a skillful home-room teacher it will tend to es- 
tablish the class-unit spirit and a collective right-minded- 
ness that will permeate all the activities of the day. 

The weekly class meeting. In addition to the daily ten- 
minute period, a half-hour period once a week should be pro- 


THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY 211 


vided for class-meeting purposes. At this time the home- 
room, in charge of its own officers and its teacher-counselor, 
goes into session for the discussion of school affairs, for ac- 
tive participation in school undertakings, and for the estab- 
lishment of class morale. The home-room sections thus be- 
come the units through which are carried out all the major 
projects of the school, and around which center all the activ- 
ities of the student government. (The procedure of the 
class-meeting in its relation to student government will be 
discussed in Chapter XVIII.) 

The school community. Just as every family is a part of a 
larger group, the community, or as a State is an integral 
part of the Nation, so the home-room section is one divi- 
sion of the larger social whole, the school community. The 
school community is primarily the federation of the home- 
room sections, but in its objects and purposes it is by no 
means a loosely knit league of classes. An individual is at 
one time a citizen of his State and of his Nation; in the same 
way the child in school is at once a member of the small class 
unit and of the larger school community. 

Kssentially the school community comprises all those in- 
dividuals whose lives are bound up with, and who contribute 
toward the life of the school — students, faculty, and jani- 
torial staff. Just to the extent that these three groups of 
workers are exerting themselves, unitedly and harmoniously 
for the good of the whole, does the school community be- 
come a forward-moving, progressive body whose members 
are mutually helpful in their desire to serve the great objec- 
tives for which the school stands. The school community is 
made up of men and women, of boys and girls. It includes 


212 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


brain-workers and hand-workers, leaders and followers. It 
is thus an aggregation very similar to the community at 
large, and containing within itself all the essential elements 
for training in individual responsibility and group codpera- 
tion. If the junior high school conceives of its work in terms 
of community living, it will find ample opportunity for de- 
veloping, through actual daily experience in a controlled en- 
vironment, those habits and attitudes which mean worthy 
and high-minded citizenship. The home-room unit and the 
school community integration are the typical organizations 
through which the socialized activities of the junior high 
school find outlet and expression in desirable training ex- 
periences. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. Suggest various ways of establishing strong morale in a home-room 
class. 

2. What should be the general qualifications of the home-room teacher? 
3. Through what procedures may the students of a school be brought to 
conscious realization of their membership in a school community? 

4. In what ways does a school janitor serve as a member of the school 

community? 
5. How may the learning of history lessons affect school community life? 
6. A junior high school teacher’s weekly program includes the following 
activities: 
(6 periods per day) 
(30 periods per week) 
EGESSOU PELIOGS ap Wien atch as Gratuite”, | enc re ular pea the tae 20 hours 
(Eighth-grade mathematics) 
(Ninth-grade mathematics) 


Preparation hours (without class)..............2ee08- Tit ae 
Home-roomimectingn yay Wee cera ketene eae 
Faculty meeting (school time)...............22ceeees eae 
Attendance at school assembly... ...........2000000e 1 bi 
Direction’of student cli ewan ae ea ete 1 m 


How does this teacher’s work at the different periods differ as to: (a) 
objectives; (b) methods; (c) psychological attitudes? 


CHAPTER XVIII 


CITIZENSHIP TRAINING AND STUDENT 
GOVERNMENT 

Citizenship training as a school function. Since the days of 
Colonel Parker, “Education into Citizenship” has been a 
favorite motto of the school, and worthy citizenship has been 
its chief objective. In the minds of too many people, how- 
ever, citizenship training has either translated itself nar- 
rowly into the education of the alien in American manners 
and customs, or has been understood as an intensive teach- 
ing of the constitution to children too young to comprehend 
the legal stateliness of its phraseology or the nobility of its 
governmental conceptions. Citizenship thus interpreted 
has given evidence of a noisy and unmeaning patriotism and 
a boastfulness that is far from true loyalty. Real citizen- 
ship must be more broadly outlined. “A democracy is more 
than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associ- 
ated living, of conjoint, communicated experience.” ! 

Citizenship in a democracy implies: (1) service through 
work and a conscious realization of that service; (2) shared 
control of governmental functions; (3) group support to 
great forward movements; and (4) shared recreation. ‘Thus 
conceived, citizenship is indeed the prime function of the 
school, and all of the school’s activities find their culmina- 
tion in the development of a worthy citizenry. 


1 Dewey, J., Democracy and Education. (The Macmillan Company, 
1917.) 


214 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


Citizenship is not a deferred value. The idea is fallacious 
that children can be presented with an inert mass of civic in- 
formation to be held in mind for use ten years hence, when 
adult responsibilities are undertaken. Citizenship is a mat- 
ter of attitudes, and attitudes are the mental sets induced by 
behavior. Since the very conditions of community life are 
themselves educative, the school, through its controlled en- 
vironment, has every facility for engendering noble citizen- 
ship attitudes if it shapes its organization and directs its pro- 
cedures toward that end. 

Factors in worthy citizenship. The school does not pro- 
pose, even in a theoretical sense, to make itself an exact min- 
iature copy of the adult world. Modern society is too com- 
plex, its activities too manifold, and the interactions of its 
groups too intricate to permit of duplication within school 
walls, even if such duplication were in the least desirable. 
The essentials of noble community living are of the spirit, 
and through them are the outward forms of citizenship con- 
stantly transformed and remoulded. Social progress de- 
pends upon the development of two correlative factors in 
civic life: individual responsibility, and group codperation. 
Both of these become the conscious accompaniment of daily 
experiences in a school organized for true citizenship training. 

Citizenship training through the work of the school. 
Since citizenship implies shared activity, and individual 
participation in the work of the larger whole, constant op- 
portunities for the exercise of citizenship qualities are pro- 
vided through socialized lesson procedures and classroom 
projects (see Chapter XIV). Whenever children are en- 
gaged wholeheartedly in planning a course of procedure with 


CITIZENSHIP TRAINING 215 


reference to a study topic, executing the tasks which center 
around it, and finally judging the results of their codperative 
efforts, there are present all the basic elements of any great 
civic undertaking, and citizenship training of a high order 
is inherent in the situation. 

Citizenship training through play. It is equally true that 
shared recreation involves desirable civic reactions. A com- 
mon background of shared pleasure tends to eliminate class 
barriers, and personal prejudices give way before good team- 
work. School athletics have doubtless contributed much to 
the establishment of ideas of good comradeship and fair play 
in American communities. The school club has resolved it- 
self into a group seeking recreation through the pursuit of a 
common hobby, and has thus helped to set aside racial and 
caste distinctions within school walls. 

Student government as an organization for citizenship 
training. While the entire life of the school is centered 
around the junior citizenship ideal, it is through the organi- 
zation of student government that civic responsibilities are 
most consciously and directly called into play. Since de- 
mocracy implies participation, student participation in school 
control must bean accepted educational principle. To the end 
that such participation may mean active, vital direction of 
the junior high school community, and not merely the formal 
acceptance of a theory, a well-organized and effective student 
government is an essential feature of junior high school life. 

Desirable characteristics of a student government. In 
order that the relation of a government to the community 
governed may be thoroughly understood by the members of 

the school, and that it may exert a daily influence for good in 


216 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


the lives of the students, the form of student government 
adopted must be simple in its organization and direct in its 
methods of operation. Elaborate copies of adult govern- 
ments are unsuited to the junior high school age. Nor 
should the student organization find its chief reason for exist- 
ence in the necessity for maintaining discipline. It is un- 
fortunately true that the idea of government rarely becomes 
conscious in the mind of the adult except with regard to its 
punitive functions. Student government in the school may 
be one means of training the communities of the future to a 
different point of view. The school government, planned to 
facilitate real achievement and progress in school affairs, 
need have no judicial functions with reference to misdemean- 
ors and no penalty-inflicting powers, and yet may be an 
active power in securing willing response to thoughtfully 
accepted regulation. 

A typical student government organization. A junior 
high school organized on the home-room basis (see Chapter 
XVII) will find it advantageous to establish that form of stu- 
dent government which functions directly through the home- 
room section. The fact that each home-room section main- 
tains itself as a unit during the day, and that it has its own 
time of meeting for extra-curricular purposes, makes this 
easily possible. In the student organization illustrated by 
Figure 6 each home-room section elects its own officers for 
the term. These officers are then responsible to the home- 
room for directing its activities with regard to the major 
projects of the school community, and are responsible to 
the school community for securing the effective codperation 
of their section in school enterprises, in appropriate conduct, 
and in the establishment of worthy school standards. 


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218 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


In order that there may be codrdinated effort among the 
home-room sections, officer group meetings are held under 
the direction and guidance of members of the faculty. All of 
the class presidents, for example, meet in monthly confer- 
ence with the principal of the school. From their number is 
chosen, by vote of the entire school population, a school 
community president, who thus becomes the chief student 
officer of the school. All the vice-presidents meet in group 
conference with a member of the faculty, and from their 
number is chosen the school community vice-president. In 
the same way the school community secretary-treasurer and 
usher are chosen. 

Student government meetings. If a student government 
organization is to serve a real purpose, time must be allotted 
within the school day for its visible and recognized activity. 
The daily ten-minute period and the weekly half-hour class 
meeting are essential to successful participation in school af- 
fairs. The class meeting should be conducted in parliamen- 
tary style, with the class officers in charge and the teacher 
acting merely as a member of the group. In addition to 
class business, objectives common to the whole school, such 
as cleanliness, health, safety, corridor conduct, students’ 
scholarship fund, thrift, service to the city, etc., should be 
discussed, and resolutions leading to united action put for- 
ward. Officers should be called upon frequently for reports 
of activities in their respective fields, and should be held 
strictly accountable to their home-room section for the dis- 
semination of information concerning the various projects of 
the school community. 

It is highly desirable that at least once a week the teacher 


CITIZENSHIP TRAINING 219 


and his class officers hold conference with regard to the 
special needs and general policies of their class. Once a 
month the officer group meetings referred to in a preceding 
paragraph should be held for the discussion of officer prob- 
lems, and the clarification of ideas regarding officer duties. 
Several times during the term the entire school community 
should meet in convention, in charge of the school commu- 
nity officers, to consider some particular matter of school 
participation and control, or to launch some large enterprise. 
Through the class meeting, the officer group meetings, and 
the school community convention, student government is 
raised to the level of an active, working, codperative organi- 
zation, and the holding of office becomes a real responsibil- 
ity, not an empty form. Through actual participation in 
school control and direction, both governed and governors 
learn vital lessons in democratic citizenship; and individual 
responsibility and group codperation become meaningful 
concepts in the daily life of the students. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. List what you would consider to be the duties of each home-room offi- 
cer, indicated in the diagram on page 217. 

@. If you were the principal of a junior high school, what steps would you 
take to initiate a student government? 

3. Do you consider it objectionable to invest penalty-giving powers in 
student boards or councils? Give reasons for your answer. 

4. Show in detail how a “Correct Speech Campaign”’ might be carried 
out in a junior high school, under the auspices of the student govern- 
ment. 

5. If you were the teacher of a seventh grade in which the standards of 
conduct were not satisfactory, how could you utilize the student gov- 
ernment to secure the establishment of higher ideals? 

6. Plan a constitution for a student government. 


CHAPTER XIX 
AVOCATIONAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 


Necessity for training in the worthy use of leisure. The 
present tendency in progressive school systems to include 
within the actual working program of the school wholesome 
forms of recreation, is indicative of the extent to which edu- 
cation has become synonymous with living. The craving 
for pleasure is inborn in every individual. Not only is phys- 
ical renewal effected through pleasurable activity, but the 
feeling-tone which accompanies such activity blocks aber- 
rant tendencies and brings about a general integration of the 
personality in complete self-expression. So strong is the 
pressure for personal enjoyment that, if socially desirable 
forms of pleasure are not available, lower types will be seized 
upon to the detriment physically and mentally of individ- 
ual well-being. The everyday tasks of the majority of 
the world’s workers are becoming increasingly monotonous 
and deadening. ‘The constant improvement of machinery 
means less physical activity for man and eventually more 
hours of leisure. How these leisure hours with their accu- 
mulations of unexpended energy shall be occupied is a prob- 
lem of tremendous social importance, and here, as in the 
other aspects of life, the school must foresee the need and 
accept the obligation for training. The worthy use of lei- 
sure is, then, one of the cardinal objectives of education.! 


1 Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education. (United States Bureau 
of Education, Bulletin 35, 1918.) 


AVOCATIONAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 224 


Club activities in the junior high school. The junior 
high school period is particularly a time when, because the 
individual is seeking wider social contacts, pleasures must 
be freely offered. Commercialized amusements, good, bad, 
and indifferent, flaunt themselves in the eyes of youth, and 
by constant suggestion tend to develop not only habits of 
foolish expenditure, but insistent cravings for excitement as 
well. To counteract these tendencies the school must pro- 
vide pleasurable activities, under circumstances that mean 
worthy associations and refined surroundings. 

It is foreign to the very nature of pleasure to submit to 
dictation; happiness is truly from within. The school must 
offer training in the worthy use of leisure, and yet refrain 
from prescription. This involves the sanction and direction 
of many types of amusements within the school walls. Ath- 
letics have long held a recognized place in student life, but if 
desirable results in avocational guidance are to be accom- 
plished the range of natural and wholesome amusements pre- 
sented must be broad enough to attract children of varying 
tastes and temperaments. For this reason the “hobby 
hour,” or club period, is finding its place in the junior high 
school. The following list is suggestive of the types of club 
activity which it is possible to develop: 


Hanp-Work Cubs LirERARY CLUBS 
Aeroplane Short Story 
Wireless Book Lovers 
Handicraft Dramatic 
Santa Claus (toymaking) Troubadours 
Cartooning French 
Illustrating Spanish 


Marionette 


222 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


Hanp-Work Cuvuss (continued) 


Music anp Art CLUBS 


Basketry Glee 
Embroidery Orchestra 
Knitting Art Gallery 
Laundry Sketching 
Millinery 
Crochet 
ScIENCE ATHLETICS 
Bird Athletic (Boys) 
Wildflower Athletic (Girls) 
Chemistry Folk Dancing 
Astronomy Stunt 
Electricity Swimming 
MiscELLANEOUS GAME CLUBS 
Stamp and Coin Chess 
Camera Checkers 
Campcraft 
First Aid 
Know Your City 
Travel 


The establishment of a club program. In developing a 
club program, the first step is to secure a definite time allot- 
ment. This means that one period weekly must be set aside 
for purely avocational purposes. In many localities this 
period should fall within the hours of the school day, or large 
numbers of boys and girls who work between four and six 
o'clock will be deprived of club pleasures. In other districts 
club activities may be relegated to after-school hours, pro- 
vided that the willingness and enthusiasm of the teachers 
are such as to make their services regularly available. 

A survey of pupil desires with respect to the types of 
clubs to be offered should next be made, and, since all stu- 


AVOCATIONAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 223 


dent clubs must have faculty direction, the faculty must be 
canvassed to discover club leaders. When the club period is 
held within the school day, every teacher not excused for 
special duties is expected to assume the directorship of a 
club. Experience has shown that in a large school almost 
every hobby will have some enthusiastic advocate among the 
teachers, and when the teacher is thus personally interested 
in the activity of the club which he directs, the best type of 
leadership and the keenest kind of pupil enjoyment are 
developed. 

After the preliminary survey of possibilities, a list of clubs 
to be offered is prepared, giving information concerning the 
specific plans of each club and the expenses and conditions 
involved in membership. From this list each pupil makes a 
choice of three club activities which appeal to him, with the 
assurance that he will be assigned to one of the clubs thus 
chosen. Assignments are then made by a teacher com- 
mittee appointed to take charge of all club matters. Before 
assignments are announced each faculty director is allowed 
the privilege of accepting or rejecting individuals from the 
proposed personnel of his club, so that the leader is guar- 
anteed a congenial and harmonious group. After the open- 
ing of the club program for the term, changes from club to 
club are made only with the sanction of the club committee. 

The entering pupil. Asa general procedure, it is desirable 
to withhold club privileges for one term from the entering 
pupils of the school. When this is done, the club hour can 
be utilized with the pupils of the lower seventh grade for 
instruction in all the special procedures and projects of the 
school. Pupils may thus be made thoroughly acquainted 


224 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


with the club idea before they are permitted to join clubs, 
and the anticipatory state of mind induced leads to enthusi- 
astic entrance upon club activities at a later time. ‘This 
plan carries the further advantage that, by the withdrawal 
of this large group of children into an assembly which can be 
handled by one or two teachers, clubs need not be over- 
crowded, and in consequence directors may limit their club 
membership in accordance with the type of activity they 
mean to pursue. 

Exhibit of work. Once a year an exhibit of club work 
should be held. This will stimulate further interest and 
delight in the club program, and clubs will find ingenious 
ways of advertising their special activities and exhibiting 
their products. Such an exhibit usually attracts much at- 
tention in the community, and is one means of educating 
parents to the necessity of providing simple and wholesome 
amusement for children in the home. 

Training in social courtesy and good manners. In addition 
to direct training for the worthy use of leisure, the school can 
make its usual social activities function in the development 
of courtesy. Knowledge of a few rules of good form and 
social etiquette tend to prevent the establishment of those 
class barriers which represent all that is snobbish, narrow, 
and provincial in American life. The junior high school, 
through its organized class and school parties, can set a 
simple and natural standard of good manners if it considers 
its social functions in the light of training opportunities, and 
can thus contribute to a real democracy of enjoyment among 
its students. 

Boys and girls in the last year of junior high school, and 


AVOCATIONAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITIES = 225 


throughout senior high school, are eager for the type of 
pleasure represented by the evening party, as distinguished 
from the athletic romp. The self-consciousness, which is a 
somewhat inevitable accompaniment of these occasions, 1s 
allayed rather than accentuated by a little direct prelimi- 
nary training in the customary usages of good form, in the 
interchange of courtesies between girls and boys, in proper 
dancing positions, and in the general tone and level of the 
party spirit. When girls’ and boys’ advisers are part of the 
school staff, this work naturally devolves upon them. Where 
there are no specialized workers in the social and moral field, 
the responsibility falls upon the faculty at large. School 
parties, far from being decried, should be welcomed and en- 
couraged as affording opportunity for a type of training not 
inherent in other school situations. Supervision of these 
parties is necessary, but preliminary instruction and guid- 
ance are equally desirable. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. What arguments can you advance for the inclusion of the hobby-hour 
in the school problem? 

2. What arguments can you advance for a weekly time allotment for club 
purposes during school hours, rather than after school? 

3. At the rate of one meeting per week, a club will hold approximately 
eighteen meetings during a term. Plan a definite program covering a 
term’s activity for any one of the clubs listed on pp. 221-22, 

4, Suggest three clubs, not appearing on the list in the text, which you 
think would prove attractive in local schools. Indicate the type of ac- 
tivity which would be undertaken in the clubs you suggest. 

5. List substitutions which may be made in the school for unwholesome 
leisure activities outside. 

6. What general characteristics should be possessed by advisers to junior 
high school boys and girls? 


CHAPTER XX 


INTEGRATING FORCES IN SCHOOL COMMUNITY 
LIFE 

Disintegrating tendencies in junior high school organization. 
While the value of differentiated curricula as affording ex- 
ploratory opportunities to junior high school pupils is un- 
questioned, certain social disadvantages may accompany the 
classification of children into separate courses unless effort is 
made deliberately to obviate them. There is abroad in the 
community a lamentable tendency to contrast disadvan- 
tageously manual with mental labor, and to rank an individ- 
ual in the social scale according to the type of work by 
means of which he earns his livelihood. The same spirit 
will manifest itself in a school that maintains academic and 
trade courses side by side, unless certain shared interests are 
developed to act as integrating forces in the school com- 
munity. 

In addition to the caste distinctions so easily established 
among students, and so much to be deplored, departmentali- 
zation in teaching threatens the faculty of a school with a 
kind of disintegration which might be called “compart- 
mentalization.”” ‘The English teachers, united by their com- 
mon professional problem, will form one closely knit group, 
the mathematics teachers another, the social studies teachers 
a third, etc., and the interests of these small groups will 
become paramount, in the minds of their members, to the 
larger interests of the whole school. 


INTEGRATING FORCES 207 


Differentiation and departmentalization tend to em- 
phasize individualistic attitudes. True citizenship, on the 
other hand, demands social outlook and social participation. 
To establish fine school morale, to develop among students 
and teachers the attitude of shoulder-to-shoulder comrade- 
ship in the attainment of worthy ends, is at once the task of 
junior high school administration and the test of its success. 

School campaigns as integrating activities. Whatever the 
school does as a unit, for the honor of the school itself, will 
serve as an integrating element. For this reason school 
campaigns have a decided significance. During the World 
War the campaign demonstrated its value as a means of 
centralizing public opinion and evoking united action. The 
well-planned intensive drive accomplishes the same results 
within the school community. There is always a tendency 
to decry school activities which are not centered around the 
instructional or book-work aspects of school life, but such 
protest emanates only from members of the community who 
forget that the school has been obliged inevitably to take 
over the development of many desirable citizenship qual- 
ities which cannot be acquired from books. Health, thrift, 
safety first, courtesy, service are vital habits which the 
school is required to inculcate, and yet which are matters of 
living rather than of learning. ‘These are quite properly 
objectives for school campaigning. 

An entire school can be brought to take a keen interest in 
cleanliness, for example, through a campaign directed to- 
ward that end. Personal cleanliness becomes the subject of 
class-meeting talks, cleanliness inspection becomes a morn- 
ing duty in each home-room, how to secure one hundred per 


228 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


cent cleanliness becomes a problem for officer considera- 
tion. School facilities for securing personal cleanliness 
are provided, slogans are adopted, and assembly exer- 
cises, through plays and readings lay stress upon the desir- 
ability of cleanliness, until by a kind of cumulative enthusi- 
asm the whole school comes to take conscious pride in the 
appearance of itsown members. Cleanliness of environment 
is the next step. Desks, rooms, corridors, and grounds undergo 
a thorough inspection and cleaning. This part of the cam- 
paign naturally connects itself with “‘Clean-up-Week” in 
the community, and the school reaches out of its immediate 
environment to render service to the neighborhood. 

It is quite true that when the campaign which has focused 
school attention for a period of weeks comes to an end, effort 
will slacken somewhat, but the intensive character of the 
drive, with the enthusiasm and coéperation which it has 
generated, provides the impetus which launches the habit 
strongly, and the glow of success in group achievement 
places behind it the pressure of social sanction. 

Such campaigning throughout a school requires careful 
and detailed planning. Faculty and students must decide 
upon methods and procedures, and must actually visualize 
the results to be striven for. Only through a clear plan of 
action, formulated as a preliminary to the initiation of the 
drive, can successful accomplishment be assured. While the 
success of the drive is the main objective before both teachers 
and pupils, the unification of the school through common 
effort and shared gratification is a significant factor in the 
maintenance of a spirit of democracy among the students at 
large. 


INTEGRATING FORCES 229 


Faculty meetings. The weekly faculty meeting should be 
one of the strongest integrating influences in the life of the 
school. It is here that teachers of all departments meet on 
common ground to discuss problems of general school inter- 
est. Matters of school policy are talked over and decided 
upon; the advisability of certain undertakings is considered 
and preliminary plans made; and reports are presented by 
faculty and student committees concerning desired changes 
and improvements. The success of any project necessitates 
sympathetic understanding and willing codperation through- 
out the entire faculty. One or two teachers opposed or even 
indifferent can do inestimable damage in the working out of 
the larger plans of the school. The faculty meeting provides 
opportunity for spreading general information concerning 
any piece of work which the school undertakes as a whole; 
and insures a thorough understanding of the objectives to be 
served. 

Information and understanding are fundamental to the 
success of any school activity. In addition to matters of 
routine and to the discussion of specific problems as they 
arise, it is highly desirable that a school faculty carry on 
some extended plan of professional investigation. This 
necessitates the program prepared for the term or the year, 
with a sufficient number of free dates to permit of faculty 
attention to specific projects determined by special needs, 
A faculty meeting program must be interesting in content 
and recognized as valuable by all teachers, regardless of de- 
partment. It may include committee reports on readings, 
presentation of the results of experimentation, contributions 
from outside educators, and demonstration lessons with 


230 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


students. Such subjects as vocational guidance, student 
participation, the use of the problem method in the class- 
room, are broad enough to permit of investigation from 
various angles and to offer something of interest to all de- 
partments. When the faculty meeting is thus transformed 
into a series of faculty conferences for the serious study of 
some important movement in education, a common profes- 
sional interest is developed which helps to counteract the 
tendency to group division resulting from departmentaliza- 
tion. 

A faculty meeting program, like any other large school 
endeavor, must be successful if good is to be derived from it. 
For this reason, once the program is planned, it cannot be 
laid aside for the discussion of trivial matters of routine, 
although it must always give place to the consideration of 
pressing school problems. It is an administrative respon- 
sibility, therefore, to devise other means for conducting 
routine matters of school direction — for example, the 
mimeographed circular, the bulletin board, the depart- 
mental representative — so that the faculty meeting time 
may be left free for a type of work which means unity of out- 
look and shared professional advancement. 

The school assembly. Another integrating force in the 
school community is the school assembly. It is in assembly 
that the real school is consciously recognized as an entity by 
the pupils and teachers who compose it. The assembly 
draws members of all classes and all departments into a 
social whole, united for the achievement of dignified and 
worthy aims. It is not the purpose of the assembly to pro- 
vide a weekly period of mere entertainment, although a 


INTEGRATING FORCES 231 


spirit of pleasure and enjoyment always characterizes the 
successful program. Information concerning school activ- 
ities, inspiration for the enthusiastic carrying out of school 
projects, and shared appreciation of whatever is beautiful 
and artistic in school life are the essential contributions of 
the assembly period. Plays, readings, talks, screen pictures, 
music, and dancing are its media of impression; suggestion 
rather than mandate is its method of approach. Properly 
conducted, the assembly is such a potent influence for good 
in the life of the school that its importance should be recog- 
nized by the appointment of a competent director, presum- 
ably a teacher of dramatics, to take entire charge of the 
planning and preparation of its programs. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. Plan a Courtesy Campaign. Suggest topics for five class meetings, 
covering such aspects of the subject as courtesy in the home, at school, 
on the street, and in public places. 

2. Arrange an assembly program to emphasize the desirability of cour- 

tesy. 

. Work out slogans and devices for making courtesy a popular idea. 

. List books and magazine articles dealing with the subject of courtesy. 

. To what extent is courtesy influenced by nativity; by environment; by 

training? 

6. Plan a series of ten faculty conferences, on any important educational 
movement that you think would be of general interest to junior high 
school teachers. Suggest the type of procedure and the specific topic 
for each meeting. 


cr & o9 


SELECTED REFERENCES FOR PART II 


Briggs, T. H. “Extra Curricular Activities in Junior High Schools”; in 
Educational Administration and Supervision, January, 1922. 

Caldwell, O. W. ‘“‘Some Factors in Training for Leadership ’’; in Fourth 
Yearbook, National Association of Secondary School Principals, 
1920. 

Clapp, H. L. ‘Pupil Self-Government”’; in Education, April, 1918. 


232 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


Fretwell, E.K. ‘Education for Leadership”’; in Teachers College Record, 
September, 1919. 
——‘‘The Assembly”; in Sixth Yearbook, National Association of 
Secondary School Principals, 1922. 

Glass, J. M., and Lewis, A. Student and Faculty Activities. Bulletin, 
Pennsylvania Department of Public Instruction, March, 1922. 

Harwood, H. M. “Extra-Curricular Activities in High Schools’; in 
School Review, April, 1918. 


PART III 
GUIDANCE 


CHAPTER XXI 
EDUCATIONAL AND VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 


Necessity for guidance of junior high school pupils. Assoon 
as a school adopts a program of differentiated courses, it be- 
comes cognizant of pressing guidance problems. Differenti- 
ated courses do not differ in fundamentals nor in the com- 
mon basic elements of culture. Their specializations are 
vocational in outlook, corresponding in a general way to the 
technical, industrial, professional, and commercial types of 
vocation in the community. When a pupil elects to follow a 
certain course in the junior high school, he thus makes his 
first, though by no means his final, vocational choice. If 
pupils are to use the junior high school as an exploratory 
field to test their powers and aptitudes, preparatory to a 
later choice of vocation, they must be fully informed con- 
cerning the various types of training offered by the school 
and the significance of each in relation to the occupational 
life of the community. 

The nature of the guidance problem. A guidance pro- 
gram involves two kinds of work: (a) counseling, which aims 
to reach the individual with personal advice and encourage- 
ment; (b) class instruction, with reference to educational 
and vocational opportunities. ‘The former necessitates a 
sympathetic understanding of the individual; the latter, a 
thorough knowledge of the vocational world. 


234 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


The study of the individual. The school is constantly 
confronted with the necessity of finding some compromise 
between the desirability of individual contacts and the 
practical necessity of mass instruction. Under a depart- 
mentalized plan, a teacher meets about one hundred and 
sixty children per day. Variations in temperament, health, 
mental ability, and economic status produce such marked 
effects upon the learning processes that some type of per- 
sonnel work with children is an essential accompaniment of 
departmentalization. When, in addition to securing the 
greatest possible progress in learning, the junior high school 
must assume the educational and vocational direction of its 
pupils, the problem of knowing each individual sufficiently 
to permit of wise counsel becomes one that taxes all the re- 
sources of the entire faculty of the school. Certain methods 
for securing the necessary information are especially useful. 

(a) The questionnaire method. The questionnaire offers 
the simplest method of obtaining information from large 
numbers of pupils. ‘Through a printed form sent to the 
home it is possible to discover something of the economic 
status of the family, the social and recreational life of the 
child, the educational standards of the parents, and their 
plans for the child’s future. A form filled out by the student 
himself will reveal some indication of his desires and abili- 
ties, and one filled out by the home-room teacher will give 
the opinion of a trained observer as to the student’s traits 
and characteristics. Such questionnaires should be brief 
and simple, and should be prepared by the faculty of a given 
junior high school to meet local conditions. Suggestive 
forms are illustrated in Figures 7, 8, and 9, given on the 
pages which follow. 


EDUCATIONAL AND VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 235 


PARENT’S RECORD 
To the Parent: 


The information on this blank is requested in order that we may help your 
child choose the course that will bring him the greatest degree of satisfaction 
and success. Your codperation will be greatly appreciated. 





NA MUO SAL od TaN dE Ga Ley sda 8 Hus d ba So one PAE Me ok 

CPT OnrOn ation <1 18) /TNyi Mven plow nies Min eric ich iniatiied ashe iy ley 

PEER DAMOIIOU TOL ED + AeA Nu dak tei eye rau een er ae Dey 3 

oes Sig eg + eNOS STI CL A eS eB 
1. How much longer do you plan to send your child to school?........ 
2. What are your plans for him when he leaves this school? 

° YY, Pp her she SLLOOLE sis eles 6 6 616 ° 
PUpiochool eeu eeia cue ts Business ocnoolsn se eenl. bu ) 
Private School trcan ey ot", Homey ivan. cy WV Or ear ra 

3. For what occupation would you like to have ea prepares iii 2. : 

Pret ete retake iat dot 2 Oe IVY GU cua i (hak Ce OWL Mb Evi, Cag © 
4, Is his eneral health good? 

her g ‘24 OPS) SENOS SLING A6 9S OS Oa) a @ SS O16 6 BS Bue R68 Oe 6 610.6 6 ° 

5. What are hee special interests outside of school? ..............06. 

6. Is aus employed outside of school?....... If so, at what occupation? 


SS See eee 8 OSS) OS eke) 48) 6) OE Sie, eb) a) 8) 8b) O16. Oa OO) and) 6 Ven lel Beal a ela ee) ib te m6) o 6) 8 Ole 


7. Are there any special conditions which you would like the school to 


take into consideration in recommending a course for your child?........ 
Paves. s PISNALOTE OM Ai Mol shen el ML Ney bus se 


Fic. 7. InpivipuAL INFORMATION BLANK No. 1 


236 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


TEACHER’S RECORD 


Students MAME 001.2. ss sietnieies ve reiee Mis loo less b Rinl& le nuete Wcee aie Vigne eee A 
Date ‘of birth 03525 wih nvscbew cereale cae olen ob, ale he eis! acetate ne Geet tere ae ; 
Nabionality 525) onpeccko ashe alates as eps ines ees sie 0 ie canoe lot re ot soe eee eae 
1. Rating in scholarship: Excellent............. Good |. cc. dnce pane 
Averages esas sic. Faire ada s eee eee Poort). ), «ase teen eae . 

2. Rating in handwork: Excellent.............. Good 2 ovis Ie ene 
AVGrAge PUNO ou Paice ie le voy teed Poor (Jolie aie 
S.jopecial abilities) 33.3% ace aG eis ate oh rm tle ce nialy se ote ie 
4). Special weaknesses... (s!s/s's/s\s1s o/s’ « s'a.e's 4 uals 4 a1 «9 bo ley Seen 

5. Field of special aptitude: Mental............ Manual. oes 
ATUISUG EN is ac pert (Not apparent f.07. 2 eee ee ) 

6.) Physical or mental handicaps: ). (01); 2. pow <i’ sao tec e see eee ° 


7. Rating in the following traits (E-G-A-F-P) 


ENITIALIVE Scien we talansa ne Industry iisi00c ss se ee 
Responsibility............. Self-control (i170 Jair wee 
Ambition yee. eee cae os Courtesy) ci ene 
Coéperation:..¥2¢ vy. h. Neatness. Jc :iy eaoane cee 

8. Advice as to choice of course?...............0000. Why?... each 


Teacher’s Signature. ..........+cces 


Fig. 8. Inpivipvaut InrorRMATION BLANK No. 2 


- EDUCATIONAL AND VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 237 


PUPIL’S RECORD 


IN AING ren srt alate heigtaa tone slates serine Datei tans oie css Vale eee af 
PU Peem ennse eee ald wa Gliese Weg Shara Grade tore ay auae eae ener 
AeRVV AC SUD]CCL dO YOU LKe DeSth) ol ce sc ole cules oldie e's alae ye cee ems 
Wey) Hat suniect 1s easiest LOL, VOUFs: 2 la ae cnicd eae cclet wlavicmstes cles piers 
Se WW hatasubject do-you like leaste 13).1. 4/04 oleic <p s\mjerelelei«/sieisiels A njnsie 
AAW HaL SUDIECU IS HATGESU ION YOUL tev sien n coals adce's duc cree cseels's eels 
by How do you spend your leisure time? 0.2. oss ces cic c sees tewsces 
Ga LO WHA CIID GG VOU DELON ES tee wadici s'/ s/t tie sin loreal aw ciate a ble g's ; 
7. Name three of your favorite books.............sseceeseecvcerseees 
BeVenat is VOUr favorite Magaziner ease tse cere LON wes cleigs eels/e ; 
9. Do you plan to finish Junior High School?.................6. He 
10. Do you plan to go to Senior High School? .............. 0. cee eee ‘ 
11. After high school what? College ........ Technical School........ 
Business school........ Normaliachoolyv.. 5 cee « Home sry. : 
WOE eee en erate mac a Seine baal ssa GIA hate lie a's wate als ae 
12. Have you ever earned money?........ Iniwhat-waye coun en ates IK 
13. Name three occupations in which you are interested?............ ve 
BUDA ReDALUTE ted: dings vente oe hie vwanve 


Fig. 9. Inpivipuat Information BuLankK No. 3 


238 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


All questionnaire material is subject to misinterpretation, 
to inaccuracies resulting from suggestion, and occasionally to 
deliberate falsification. Unsupplemented by other sources 
of information, the questionnaire is not an entirely reliable 
basis of educational or vocational counsel, but the knowl- 
edge of the individual which it offers is at least a good start- 
ing-point for further study. 

(b) Psychological testing. ‘There persists a popular belief, 
which the trained psychologist is the first to oppose, that 
scientific psychology offers an unparalleled method of de- 
termining vocational aptitude, and that eventually the psy- 
chologist will be able, through a few laboratory manipula- 
tions, to give accurate advice to an individual concerning his 
chief line of success. Such a belief places scientific psy- 
chology in the realm of palmistry and phrenology, and 
should be actively combatted by schools and colleges. The 
psychologist freely admits that many traits which are 
factors in vocational success, degree of will to achieve, emo- 
tional stability, etc., are not yet measured in terms of his 
science, and that, should the measurement of such single 
traits be finally achieved, we shall still be far from that 
synthesis of characteristics which makes the personality. 
The so-called vocational counselor who for a fee offers con- 
sultation and pretends to give advice, and who, by a patter 
of scientific terms, deludes the unenlightened, should be 
exposed as a charlatan and a quack. 

On the other hand, degree of intelligence is doubtless a 
factor in vocational success, and if after patient investiga- 
tion the psychologist is able to mark out roughly the intelli- 
gence planes necessary to achievement in the great types of 


EDUCATIONAL AND VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 239 


vocations, such information will be useful. It has become a 
general practice in junior high schools to administer group 
intelligence tests to the student body as a basis for ability 
classification. Scores are kept on file, and test ratings are 
thus available to round out the picture of the child when 
counsel as to choice of course is being offered. While no 
effort is made to maintain a given level of mentality in the 
different courses, experience has proved that low-mentality 
children are seriously handicapped in strictly academic 
work. Such children are warned of the obstacles which they 
will encounter, and urged to make other choice. 

(c) Personal conference. Both the questionnaire and the 
psychological test offer in the last analysis only paper in- 
formation. Further contact must be established with that 
warm, living, changing, human thing — the child himself. 
Personal conference is the next stage of counsel. While 
there are frequent conferences between the classroom teacher 
and the pupil in the normal pursuance of their daily rela- 
tionship, the presence in the junior high school of a teacher 
whose sole function is guidance makes possible a more com- 
plete discussion of the initial choice with every child. Guid- 
ance conferences can never take the place of the active inter- 
est of the home-room teacher, but they supplement his work 
and offer to the pupil another means of information concern- 
ing the program of the school, and its varied opportunities. 
The guidance conference with the individual should precede 
choice of course, change of course, or withdrawal from 
school. From the personal interview an alert counselor 
gains further insight into the child’s personality and dis- 
position, and the human element is thus added to the in- 
formation already contained in record form. 


240 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


(d) Home visiting. The child’s attitude toward his school 
life and toward his future is so profoundly influenced by his 
home environment that, if the complete knowledge so essen- 
tial to wise educational and vocational counsel is to be 
sought in any conscientious spirit, a large amount of home 
visiting must be done. Administrative provision should be 
made for such work, preferably by lightening the daily pro- 
gram of two or three teachers who may then act as visiting 
counselors for the school. Working in codperation with the 
guidance director and the home-room teachers, they seek 
every opportunity for establishing a cordial and friendly 
relationship with the home, so that the entire work of the 
school may be freely talked over and thoroughly understood 
by the parents of the children. Choice of course, change of 
course, part-time employment, possibility of withdrawal, 
conditions operating against school success, all of these are 
matters requiring home conference. Visiting counselors not 
only keep parents informed, but keep the school awake to 
the needs of the individual child and sympathetic to the 
conditions which surround him in his daily life. 

The school and the gifted child. It should be said in pass- 
ing, however, that the economic status of the home is not 
and should not be the basis for recommendation as to choice 
of course, nor as to choice of vocation. ‘The school must 
recognize its obligation to the child with special aptitudes 
and abilities, even though the apparent poverty of the home 
seems to render lengthened training out of the question. It 
is the inexcusable fault of our present economic situation 
that children who have abilities and desires that warrant ad- 
vanced training are frequently forced, at an early age, to 


EDUCATIONAL AND VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 241 


help bear the economic burdens of the family. The school 
cannot face this situation with any complacency. It must 
constantly struggle against such a condition of affairs. For 
the sake of the State, as well as for the sake of the child, 
enlightened public opinion must be enlisted to secure, for 
.very prospective worker, training to the limit of his capac- 
ity to learn. 

At present the scholarship movement is the best tool at 
hand, pending those progressive economic adjustments 
which will secure a saving wage for every family. The 
school must bring to bear upon the money problem for the 
child all of its knowledge of ways and means, all of its ad- 
vertising power, all of its authority and prestige. The 
hearts of people are always warm toward the children of the 
community. The chief danger in the situation is that the 
school will take the path of least resistance, accept the ap- 
pearance of inevitability, and let its gifted children go to 
work at fourteen or sixteen without the training which 
would capitalize their exceptional abilities for the good of 
their generation. 

The dissemination of educational and vocational informa- 
tion. ‘The school that attempts guidance must not only 
know its children in an individual way, but it must also be 
thoroughly conversant with the vocational life of its time 
and of its community. The average person knows very 
little about the work of men and women in pursuits differing 
from his own. When life was simpler and more primitive, 
the child saw about him in actual operation most of the 
industries which ministered to the needs of the family. He 
helped in the tilling of the fields, the care of the stock, and 


242 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


the building of the house. The shoemaker paid a two 
weeks’ visit to his home, and outfitted the family with shoes 
for the winter; the carpenter and joiner, the blacksmith, and 
the weaver were all familiar figures at their daily toil. The 
minister and the doctor played an intimate part in the 
affairs of the small community. The sailor came from the 
sea, and the hunter home from the hill. 

The modern child has no such background of observation 
and participation to help him in his choice of work. In- 
dustry has become so complex through specialization that 
its processes are only dimly understood by those actually 
engaged in them. Science has opened such endless pos- 
sibilities that old vocations are constantly changing, and 
new ones appearing with bewildering frequency. If the 
child is to have any breadth of outlook, if he is to find in the 
world of vocation anything but a “big, blooming, buzzing 
confusion,” the school must do what it can to make him 
acquainted directly through experience, and vicariously 
through reading, with the varied occupations of mankind. 
Nor is it entirely necessary to wait for administrative fa- 
cilities. Geography and history take on a vital quality 
when occupational study is made a part of them, and the 
teacher of English composition will find an alluring field of 
research and accompanying expression open to his pupils in 
the investigation of vocations. 

The guidance period and the course of study. The study 
of occupations is so important, however, that many schools 
have included in their weekly programs a guidance period 
which has as its objective the direct dissemination of educa- 
tional and vocational information. In order that the work 


EDUCATIONAL AND VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 243 


of this hour may be well-balanced, and really enlightening to 
the pupils in those matters which concern their present and 
future choices, a course of study must be carefully outlined 
and a systematic procedure established. The following sum- 
mary of the work of the guidance period through the junior 
high school grades indicates the content and materials of 
such a course. The teaching method is similar to that used 
in connection with social studies generally. 


In the seventh grade. The actual courses of the school are 
studied in detail. Each course is discussed with reference to the 
subjects included in it, its relation to schools of higher training, and 
its typical vocational outlets. This work precedes the choice of 
course by the pupils at the beginning of the eighth grade. 

In the eighth grade. This is considered the testing or exploratory 
period for junior high school pupils. Cross-over from course to 
course is made as easy as possible, and change that is the result of 
experience and reflection on the part of the child is not frowned 
upon. In this year occupational studies are not specialized to 
correspond with courses, but rather an effort is made to broaden 
the knowledge of all children as to vocational possibilities. Text- 
books upon occupations are used, as well as magazines and news- 
paper articles, government surveys, and all available material upon 
local industries. 

In the second half of the eighth year, an effort is made to show 
pupils the interdependence of all forms of industry upon one an- 
other, and the interlocking character of the different planes of voca- 
tion. This is done through the study of some great industrial 
project in the community. 

In the ninth grade. Pupils are now encouraged to make a more 
intensive study of some particular occupation to which they feel 
especially attracted. Much individual library reference work is 
done, trips are taken, interviews are sought, and valuable material 
is collected for exhibit. 

In addition to strictly occupational studies, the guidance course 
aims to furnish the child with simple economic information, with a 
knowledge of the progress of industrial history, and with an under- 


244 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


standing of labor legislation and the safeguards which it offers both 
to society and to the worker. ‘Throughout the entire course great 
stress is laid upon those character and personality traits which are 
necessary to success in any field of endeavor. 


Placement. At whatever age a young person completes 
his school-directed education, there should be some publicly 
supported agency available to help him in the very serious 
business of finding a job. ‘The school itself should not under- 
take this task. Placement, to be efficient, must be cen- 
tralized in order that proper contacts may be made, both for 
those who need work and for those who need workers. A 
central placement bureau connected with the certification 
office, and under the control of the local educational author- 
ities, is highly desirable, and the closest codperation should 
be established between the guidance workers of the school 
and those engaged in assigning applicants to positions. The 
employment bureau may then look to the school for helpful 
information concerning individual children, and will in turn 
keep the schools informed as to local vocational needs. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. Vocational guidance is defined as a “‘continuous process, designed to 
help the individual to choose, to plan preparation for, to enter upon, 
and to make progress in an occupation.’’ Explain how the school can 
help the individual to do these things. 

2. List the methods suggested in the text for securing the personal infor- 
mation necessary for sympathetic guidance. What other methods 
can you suggest? 

3. A “Know-Your-School”’ week for parents is now established in many 
communities. What advantages are to be derived from this movement? 

4. What sources of information concerning vocations are available for a 
guidance teacher? 

5. Outline the kinds of information that should be included in an occupas 
tional study. 

6. Discuss the guidance responsibilities of the continuation school. 


CHAPTER XXII 
HEALTH GUIDANCE 


Sounp health is so essential to the welfare of an individual at 
every stage of his career that health education is now a rec- 
ognized part of all school programs. Guidance in the health 
field involves: (a) health inspection and follow-up; (b) physi- 
cal training; and (c) instruction and habituation in the prin- 
ciples of right living. 

Health inspection. The yearly inspection of school chil- 
dren, which is carried on codperatively under the direction of 
the health department and the school authorities in many 
municipalities, is one of the most far-reaching movements of 
to-day. Not only is the life of the child being rendered hap- 
pier and more effective through the discovery and correction 
of physical defects, but the basis is being laid for a stronger 
generation and a healthier race. Medical inspection is nec- 
essarily carried on by experts, so that the work of the school 
in the matter is first that of pressure and propaganda to se- 
cure health inspection, and then hearty codperation and as- 
sistance in the administrative details essential to the pro- 
gram. In general the work is accomplished at the school by 
a corps of physicians and nurses, who take the height and 
weight of each pupil, examine eyes, ears, nose, and throat, 
and test for heart and lung troubles. Cumulative records 
are kept from year to year. Parents are notified of defects 
discovered, and clinical appointments are made. 

Since inspection loses its value without adequate follow-up, 


246 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


some provision must be made to assure proper remedial care. 
In schools having a resident nurse this work becomes part of 
her regular duties, and cases where medical attention of any 
kind has been recommended come under the nurse’s special 
observation until remedy is effected. 'This may mean visit- 
ing parents, conducting the child (with parental consent) to 
necessary clinics, securing the assistance of welfare agencies, 
giving prescribed treatment in school, and reporting cases for 
class or program adjustments. Where there is no school 
nurse in charge, follow-up must devolve upon teachers and 
advisers. Good health is so fundamental to progress and 
happiness that every school must deal with the health prob- 
lem in a conscientious and untiring fashion. 

In some cities dental inspection is similarly carried on. A 
corps of dentists and dental hygienists, with necessary equip- 
ment, takes possession of a special room, corridor, or other 
unused space in the school, and examines the teeth of all 
children, giving prophylactic service to those who desire it. 
Where dental inspection is not carried out on a large scale, 
free dental clinics are usually available and the school must 
then take the initiative in urging the attendance of all chil- 
dren for dental examination. 

Physical training. Physical training in the junior high 
school includes gymnastics, games, rhythm work, and swim- 
ming. ‘Time allotments vary in general from one to three 
hours per week, and the work is in the hands of trained phys- 
ical instructors, both men and women. The excellence of the 
physical training equipment in all modern buildings bears 
testimony to the importance of this phase of education in 
the eyes of the community. Participation for all, rather than 


HEALTH GUIDANCE | QA7 


intensive track and team training for the few, has come to be 
the accepted rule in school athletics. The chief need at pres- 
ent is more corrective work with small groups to overcome 
physical defects, particularly curvatures, which yield to 
properly prescribed systems of remedial exercise. 

Health campaigns. The appalling percentage of malnour- 
ished children in city schools has aroused determined efforts 
to inculcate good health habits in all grades. The junior 
high school cannot afford to abandon the health work begun 
in the elementary schools, nor permit its pupils to become 
careless in the observance of health regulations. The 
health campaign following upon the week of medical inspec- 
tion is an excellent means not only of keeping children and, 
incidentally, parents informed concerning the rules of right 
living, but of awakening real enthusiasm for putting the 
rules into practice. During the health drive, class meetings 
are devoted to a consideration of health directions with ref- 
erence to food, sleep, fresh air, and cleanliness; assemblies 
make the good-health idea attractive through health plays; 
signs and posters advertise health as desirable; and individ- 
ual weekly reports on observance of health rules are kept by 
the children themselves. Such a drive centers the attention 
of the entire school community upon health, leads to a thor- 
ough understanding of the simple rules that mean physical 
well-being, and launches anew the habit of putting these 
rules into practice. Individuals who are below standard 
physically are stimulated to care for their health, and are 
shown how to regain unimpaired vigor. 

Sex instruction. In the junior high school, for the first 
time, sex instruction emerges as a general problem. ‘The 


%8 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


connection of matters of sex hygiene with the health pro- 
gram of the school is a logical one, and stress should be laid 
upon the health aspects of the question with pupils of this 
age, rather than upon its emotional or moral aspects. This 
does not mean that children shall be frightened with the dan- 
gers of sex irregularity nor with the menace of venereal dis- 
ease. It means rather that sex shall be normally and natu- 
rally related to the other great physical functions, in order 
that morbid and secret investigations of the subject may be- 
come less prevalent. The science class offers the best back- 
ground for sex knowledge. It is in this class that sex is 
viewed as one element in the biological story, and that a vo- 
cabulary is developed for considering sex matters in a coldly 
scientific way. A basis is thus laid for mutual understanding 
when the more intimate and private talks with parents and 
advisers become necessary. 

To supplement biology lessons, two or three talks each 
term should be given to ninth-year girls and boys in segre- 
gated groups. In these talks the function of sex in human 
life may be simply and adequately treated. This work 
should be done by the boys’ and girls’ advisers, in schools 
having such workers; in other schools it should become the 
duty of physical directors or the school physician and nurse. 
Pupils may be allowed to invite mothers and fathers to these 
meetings, if such a course seems desirable. Care must be 
taken to treat the subject in a matter-of-fact way, and yet to 
set at rest the majority of the questions which it is safe to as- 
sume are agitating the minds of sixteen-year-old pupils at 
the mere mention of sex. The talk or series of talks should 
end with an appeal for right standards and clean thinking, 


HEALTH GUIDANCE 249 


and the whole matter should then be dropped as a group pro- 
cedure. Personal questions in private conference with the 
persons giving sex instruction should be encouraged. 

The work of the teacher in health guidance. For the 
most part the health work of the schcol is necessarily carried 
out by trained experts — doctors, nurses, dentists, physical 
training directors, and school advisers. The classroom 
teacher is concerned, first of all, with rendering complete co- 
operation to the health plans of the school. This means the 
occasional upsetting of classroom routine and the giving of 
lesson time to health matters, but the necessity of such work 
is unquestionable. In addition to assisting the trained 
health workers, the teacher must become responsible for 
many health matters which are of daily occurrence. Clean- 
liness inspection in the morning, fresh air in classrooms dur- 
ing the day, the mid-morning lunch for malnourished chil- 
dren, setting-up drills to break long seat periods, good posture 
at all times — these are the particular health duties of the 
teacher, and only as they are faithfully performed can the 
teacher feel that the full round of his work has been con- 
scientiously carried out. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. By what means can a school safeguard the health of its pupils when it 
cannot avail itself of the services of a physician and nurse? 
_ Formulate a set of health rules for junior high school pupils. 
. Suggest devices for interesting pupils in the practice of health rules. 
. Discuss the importance of the teacher’s health to the work of the school. 
What administrative means may be utilized to secure the health of the 
teacher? 
5. Discuss the following statement: “We are beginning to realize that 
there is a direct relation between hygiene and morality.”’ 
6. Discuss the desirability or undesirability of segregating boys and girls 
in the classes of the junior high school. 


Hm Co © 


CHAPTER XXIII 
MORAL GUIDANCE 


The moral guidance problem. Moral guidance aims to lead 
the child to respond, not to the “accident of authority,” but 
to inner promptings so clarified, emotionalized, and trained 
that right conduct is a non-debatable outcome. Even a par- 
tial approximation of this aim involves: (a) the direction of 
instinctive tendencies to action (p. 66); and (b) the com- 
pounding of the emotions into sentiments or ideals (pp. 109, 
110). Direction of instinctive tendencies is effected chiefly 
through the establishment of modes or patterns of conduct 
in response to a controlled environment. The development 
of ideals is attempted through direct and indirect moral in- 
struction. 

Moral training through the controlled environment. Asa 
training ground for adolescence, the junior high school must 
“provide so much of good that the bad cannot creep in.” 
Through the activities which it encourages, the atmosphere 
it engenders, and the standards to which it gives its sanction, 
the school tries to habituate every child to active response on 
the plane of right conduct. The controlled environment acts 
selectively upon the instinctive tendencies, calling into fre- 
quent expression the desirable ones, and permitting the un- 
desirable ones to lose their potency through disuse. Every 
time that the school through its control of objective stimuli 
evokes worthy response in conduct, it accustoms the in- 


MORAL GUIDANCE 251 


dividual to that particular type of response, with all its 
clustered emotions and satisfactions. 

Moral direction in the classroom is being exerted uncon- 
sciously when every child is whole-heartedly engaged in the 
work of the day. This is largely accomplished through 
choice of subjects of intrinsic interest, and through variation 
in method of attack. If the dullness of routine causes the at- 
tention of the children to become diffused, energies that are 
not being fully utilized are finding other outlets — good, 
bad, and indifferent. Whenever a lesson flags and children 
lose the zest of participation, the environment is no longer 
controlled for good, although there may be no apparent dis- 
order. The doctrine of interest carries moral as well as 
pedagogical implications. 

Departmentalization in itself is an active type of organ- 
ization. The change to another room, another teacher, and 
another content of thought and expression means a recenter- 
ing of interest at the beginning of each period, and a fresh 
summons to undivided attention and complete response. 
In addition, the enriched curriculum, with its varied appeals 
and opportunities, serves to keep children mentally and 
manually busy. Extra-curricular activities of all kinds — 
campaigns, assemblies, dramatics, athletics, school orches- 
tras, student newspapers, dancing classes, and club work — 
offer recreative privileges under controlled conditions, and 
help to fill the life of the child with attractive things to do. 
Ordinary temptations have little power to intrude upon the 
consciousness of children whose thoughts are happily cen- 
tered in wholesome and engaging pursuits. 

The ‘‘temper” of the school. In a more subtle way, 


252 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


the very atmosphere of the school should be conducive to 
the building of fine character. If sunny good humor and 
hearty codperation are prevalent, a corresponding spirit will 

reflected in each member of the larger whole. The teach- 
ers of the school are chiefly responsible for what might be 
termed the “temper” of the school. No amount of so-called 
discipline in the form of quietness and obedience can com- 
pensate for a genial and courteous atmosphere of considera- 
tion and good comradeship. ‘This does not imply that a 
choice must be made between order under strict authority 
and license under an easy-going régime. It is rather a 
choice between the type of order which results from fear and 
that which results from a willingness to meet the standard 
unconsciously established when leadership is vested in high- 
minded and winning personalities. 

Character building by emphasis of traits. Somewhat 
more directly the school can give sanction to desirable char- 
acter traits by including recognition of them on its report 
card as equally commendable with scholarship achievement. 
Many schools have included conduct ratings in their 
monthly reports, but the concept developed in the minds 
of the children has been largely that of refraining from 
whispering, note-writing, and similar trivial misdemeanors 
peculiar to school life. If emphasis is to be laid upon 
character development, positive rather than negative in- 
terpretations of character traits must be built up, and a 
true sense of values established. The Horace Mann Ele- 
mentary School has pointed the correct procedure in its 
chart, analyzing for children, teachers, and parents the at- 
titudes desirable for good citizenship. The following citizen- 


' PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 253 


ship elements are made clear in terms of daily conduct ex- 


pression: ! 
Health and posture Honesty and trustworthiness 
Orderliness Fair play and good sportsman- ' 
Thrift ship 
Promptness Civic responsibility 
Clear thinking Courtesy and consideration 
Helpful initiative and self- Cooéperativeness 

reliance Generosity and broadmindedness 


Self-control and obedience = Loyalty 
Courage and perseverance Appreciation 


In the Rochester Washington Junior High School, desir- 
able traits are emphasized through the Code of Honor 
adopted by the school (Figure 10), and through report card 
recognition (Figures 11 and 12). Pupils who qualify in schol- 
arship, citizenship, health, participation, and character, as 
set forth in the Code of Honor, receive the school letter. 

Concrete standards for honor recommendation. To es- 
tablish a simple and concrete standard with reference to char- 
acter traits the following analysis is used: 


STANDARDS FOR DETERMINING Honor RECOMMENDATIONS 
Character 


1. Codperation 
A pupil may be said to show codperation — 

(a) When he helps his class and his school in all their 
undertakings. 

(b) When he helps to maintain the good name of the school 
by his conduct in corridors, assemblies, toilets, during 
relaxation period, at lunch hour, etc. 

(c) When he shows care and respect for all the property of 
the school — books, furniture, walls, etc. 


Set UL EN Ts ek ab naa a a a TOE 


1 Upton, S. M., and Chasell, C. F., “A Scale for Measuring Habits of 
Good Citizenship ”; in Teachers College Record, January, 1919. 


Q54 MORAL GUIDANCE 


CODE OF HONOR 


I. Scholarship: 
A term record of at least “‘C ” (average) in every subject is required. 


II. Civic Habits: 
A. Attendance: 
Not more than four half-days excused absence for the term. 
Exceptions: 

1. Church holidays certified by the rabbi or priest to the principal will not be 
counted against a student’s record. 

2. A prolonged absence caused by personal illness or serious family trouble will 
not be counted against the record of a student if he is able to meet the schol- 
arship requirement. In such cases, a special recommendation from the 
home-room teacher and the approval of the council are required. 

B. Punctuality: 
Not more than four tardinesses per term for unavoidable cause, such tardi- 
ness to be excused by the faculty director of attendance. 
C. Thrift: 
Candidates must present at least ten weekly deposit slips per term under the 
‘school banking system. 
Exceptions: 

1. A bank-book showing a similar number of deposits in an outside bank will 
be accepted. 

2. Pupils who show excessive waste of materials may lose credit for thrift even 
though the banking requirement is met. 

8. Pupils unable for economic reasons to meet the banking requirement may, 
upon recommendation of the home-room teacher and the approval of the 
council, receive credit for thrift in care and use of all school materials. 

D. Service: 

A recommendation from the home-room teacher for service willingly rendered 

is required. 


III. Character: 
Self-Control 
Reliability 
Codperation 
Courtesy 


IV. Health: 
A. Cleanliness: 
A recommendation from the home-room teacher is required. 


B. Vigor: 


A recommendation from the nurse is required. 
V. School Activities: 


Certified by all teachers with whom the student comes in contact. 


Athletics 

Orchestra : i ae x | 
Assembly Programs To receive credit a student must have participated actively in 
Pathfinder one of these and must receive a recommendation from the director, 
Clubs 


Fic. 10. Copr Usrep By Wasuineton Junior Hieu Scuoon, RocHEestErR, 
New York 


REPORT CARD 


A = Superior Work 


B = Work above Average 
C = Average Work 

D = Work below Average 
E = Failure 


Wasuineron Junron Hian ScHoo., 
Rocuxster, New YorE 





HEALTH 


Cleanliness 







No record unless unsatisfactory 







Vigor 
(physical 
condition) 


PARTICIPATION 


i rR 
ies 
ee 
sec a | 






Next Tpru’s AssIGNMENT 


Full promotion to 
Partial promoticn to 


Won-Promotion to 


Fig. 11. SHow1ne FRontT AND Back Paces or Pupr Rerort CARD 


SCHOLARSHIP 


| _suniets fa [2 | 8 [ave | 


aca isa TE 
[Literature || 
BEPC RAD Wn a PT Na 
[Penmanship | |_|. 


pare IE 

Geography Rr 
es ee TT 
sa 
RAYS DT 
Music ED Poe ae es 
First Lesson in Bus. 




































Business Writing a eae 
Tye ete AN ICR vy | 
Bookkeeping | | | | 
[Gon Oeuf 
Applied Seiehce ies l iW |iN| tees cman 
pcm seen il gah 0 ANE 97 174 Ia Valk ee 
A i a PN 

Brontine (o/b Ve | Galel MOAN Outs | AUR 

Gas Engine RoE ee 
PERNT ley Ble DR CE CS eg 


[Pattem Making [| [|_| 
BSS 














Ber OT IT SE 
[Household Scene |_| | | 
ea a NAN A 











a) 
Pe Oe 
HRI (a 
gL om TE 
[ Guidanes | | | 


Health Education Gaal a 







eer eeseeeoesreeeeeeeeseeeoeseseeoee eee 


CIVIC HABITS 


Attendance 
(Days 
absent) 


Punctuality 
(Times 


(Number of 
Deposits) 


Service 


CHARACTER 


Conduct as shown in fi fe | s| 


Self-control 
Reliability 


Codperation 


Courtesy 





Fie. 12. SHowine Paces 2 AND 8 or Purr Report Carp 


MORAL GUIDANCE 257 


(d) When he helps to maintain the good appearance of 

classrooms, corridors, entries, and lawn. 
2, Reliability 
A pupil may be considered reliable — 

(a) When he speaks the truth. 

(b) When he refrains from taking anything that does not 
belong to him. 

(c) When he keeps his promises without evading or forget- 
ting. 

(d) When his written lessons and tests are strictly his own 
work. 

(e) When he presents his report card for inspection at home 
and returns it promptly. 

(f) When school obligations such as excuses for absence or 
early dismissal, return of library books, payment of 
book rentals, etc., are honestly and promptly fulfilled. 

3. Self-control 
A pupil may be considered to show self-control — 

(a) When he does not lose his temper at petty annoyances. 

(b) When his conduct throughout the school day is recog- 
nized by his teacher and classmates as excellent. 

(c) When his conduct at fire drill is beyond reproach. 

4. Courtesy 
A pupil is courteous — 

(a) Who thinks of the comfort and welfare of others with 
whom he is associated. 

(b) Who uses “thank you,” “excuse me,” and other polite 
expressions at appropriate times. 

(c) Who does not interrupt when others are talking. 


The inculcation ef ideals. An ideal or sentiment is an 
idea with emotional accompaniments that make it seem a 
desirable and satisfying pattern of conduct (pp. 118-119). 
The inculcation of an ideal implies a concept of the nature of 
the admired act or trait, a strong emotional enthusiasm for 
it, and a tendency to copy it in conduct. What traits shall 
be deliberately fostered, what methods shall be used in the 


258 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


development of ideals, and how action outlets shall be pro- 
vided are crucial problems for school consideration in the 
matter of moral guidance. 

Direct moral instruction. The field of direct moral in- 
struction needs further exploration in the public schools be- 
fore its values can be adequately discussed. In general such 
instruction aims to utilize biographical and historical mate- 
rial to set forth vividly and concretely some action-series 
embodying a moral principle. After story presentation, the 
class discusses the moral issue involved until the idea stands 
out clearly, and other examples are then brought forward to 
enlarge and develop it. Care is taken to select incidents 
which lead to an appreciation of the sheer moral beauty of 
right action, rather than those which view rightness as re- 
lated to reward. 

Through direct moral instruction it 1s expected that the 
child’s concepts of right and wrong will be clarified, and that 
the affirmations of the discussion will tend to establish an at- 
titude or set of mind toward the particular moral principle of 
the lesson. The disadvantages of the procedure seem to arise 
from the fact that the process is coldly intellectual. Ideals 
which culminate in deeds are shaped in the heat of emotional 
stress, rather than in the cold thoughtfulness of mental de- 
liberation. 

No method of character development should be left un- 
tried, however, and the direct moral instruction plan is find- 
ing a place and a time allotment in vocational guidance 
classes, where the essentials of character that mean worthy 
living must receive emphasis side by side with the study 
of the ways in which man earns his economic livelihood. 


MORAL GUIDANCE 959 


Story discussion lessons on the following character topics are 
given in connection with the guidance work summarized on 
page 243. 


Seventh Grade 
Worthy Home Membership 
Worthy School Membership 
Courtesy 
Eighth Grade 
Service 
Reliability 
Perseverance 
Honesty 
Codperation 
Ninth Grade 
Ambition 
Thrift 
The Ideal Citizen 
(synthesis of desirable qualities) 


Indirect moral instruction. ‘The indirect approach to the 
problem of establishing ethical ideals is indirect only so far 
as the pupils are concerned. It may be directly and con- 
sciously planned by the teacher, but results are obtained 
through the emotional impact of the lesson content rather 
than through intellectual analysis. This is primarily the 
method of literature. Literature carries the child in imagi- 
nation through a re-living process which makes him accept as 
part of his own experience the deeds and feelings of his hero. 
If these deeds and feelings are noble and exalted, the child 
has, for the time being, been raised above the commonplace 
and trivial to a worthier attitude and outlook. When this 
happens over and over again, ideals are developed of such 
emotional strength that the individual must perforce bring 
his conduct into harmony with his inner life. He even seeks 


260 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


opportunity to prove to himself by outward action that he 
is truly the equal and comrade of those great personalities, 
whose living force has insinuated itself into his mental states. 

The teacher who aims thus to affect the texture of a child’s 
thought and feeling need not be concerned with pointing a 
moral nor discussing ethical situations involved. It is only 
necessary that the piece of literature be carefully selected, 
and presented in accordance with its own dignity and worth. 
If it is appropriate to the range of childish understanding, 
and if it has the impressive power of true art, it will accom- 
plish its own perfect work. Many a boy has ridden the 
paths of chivalry with King Arthur, reached the heights of 
sacrifice with Sidney Carton, and felt with Jean Valjean the 
all-embracing love of the good Bishop, because teacher or 
parent has read to him, or induced him to read for himself, 
those great literary masterpieces which are a spiritual herit- 
age. 

Individual moral guidance. Large schools are realizing 
the necessity of a type of personnel service which means the 
presence on the faculty of the girls’ and the boys’ adviser. 
The adviser’s duties include the special study of individual 
discipline problems; the direction and supervision of social 
gatherings among the students; the codrdination of the 
school with child-welfare agencies in the community; and the 
group instruction of older pupils with reference to proper 
dress, good manners, personal standards, and matters of sex 
hygiene and sex relationship. 

Such services are extremely valuable, and should be cen- 
tered in the hands of one man and one woman rather than 
scattered as separate responsibilities among a number of 


MORAL GUIDANCE 261 


teachers. 'To the adviser may then be referred those special 
problems in the moral field which need an intensive study of 
the individual and a far-reaching follow-up. Through the 
intimacy of the relationship established, conference with the 
adviser becomes the chief means of individual moral guid- 
ance, and those pupils are reached and influenced who most 
need moral stimulation, direction, and support. Individual 
help is also extended to children in difficulties of any kind, 
and pupils freely unburden themselves to the school advisers, 
confident of sympathy, advice, and active help. 

Discipline in the junior high school. Discipline is largely 
concerned with group psychology — with the subtle reac- 
tions of pupil upon pupil under conditions of mass instruc- 
tion. ‘There are prevalent in almost every group the gang 
spirit on the one hand, and the desire for personal distinction 
and supremacy on the other. The essence of good school 
management consists in transmuting the former into class 
loyalty, and the latter into proper initiative and leadership in 
service. ‘The teacher accomplishes these results, first by 
abandoning the attitude of autocratic authority, and then by 
so unifying the group through highly interesting shared activ- 
ities that pressure from the group itself 1s exerted to bring 
into harmony with its endeavors any recalcitrant individual 
who impedes class progress. 

Factors in the establishment of strong morale. Disci- 
pline problems tend to disappear when the morale of a class 
is high. Class morale is the intangible average of the indi- 
vidual attitudes in a group which determines its degree of 
trustworthiness. Every teacher recognizes what may be 
called the character of a class, and knows that his responsi- 


262 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


bilities are rendered easy or difficult according to the general 
spirit which emerges in group association. In the last analy- 
sis, morale is most strongly affected by imspirational leader- 
ship, but additional influences may be brought to bear upon 
a class to establish a high group standard. 

The teacher may, for example, depend to some extent 
upon the effect of environment. If the atmosphere of the 
classroom suggests real business on hand — materials ready | 
for instant use, lesson directions already written on the 
blackboard, neatness and tidiness of general arrangement — 
the class is likely to accept the suggestion unconsciously and 
proceed to work at once. Again, if the teacher is thoroughly 
prepared and accurately informed, as he should be in order 
to teach at all, the class responds with respect and even ad- 
miration. If the teacher’s judgment is good in selecting pu- 
pil leaders to assist him in the conduct of the lesson, he will 
be able to capitalize the popularity of the class hero in the in- 
terests of class accomplishment. By securing good work 
and good order without the friction resulting from prelimi- 
nary scenes of a disturbing nature, the teacher habituates the 
class to a desirable mode of conduct, and the morale of the 
group is correspondingly raised. 

Corrective discipline. Most of the disciplinary occur- 
rences of the school are peculiar to the school situation, and 
are trivial in character. Usually an analysis of conditions 
on a given day will show the reason for individual or group 
infractions of decorum. Minor cases are best handled by 
the teacher concerned, an effort being made to align the 
group on the side of right conduct by dealing justly and pro- 
portionately with the offense. At the same time condition- 


MORAL GUIDANCE 263 


ing causes — temperature of room, difficulty of lesson, wrong 
seating arrangement, etc. — should be quietly corrected. 

Serious cases of discipline, which indicate a spirit not 
amenable to the school régime and deliberately opposed to 
school standards, must be dealt with individually. Every 
school has its typical cases, few in number, but acting as con- 
stant storm centers in the smooth current of school affairs. 
Such cases need the intensive analysis that takes into ac- 
count factors of temperament, nationality, degree of intelli- 
gence, physical condition, and home environment. This is 
work for the school advisers. Usually some of these factors 
are found to be operative against the natural adjustment of 
the child to school control, and the method of approach is 
consequently indicated. 

Offenses cannot be condoned because of extenuating cir- 
cumstances, but their recurrence may be prevented by suit- 
able remedial measures. Punishment must frequently be 
meted out. Good sense dictates, however, that it be of a 
kind which does not leave a lasting scar of humiliation upon 
the mind of the offender. When the careful methods of the 
school fail to effect any improvement in an insubordinate in- 
dividual, his elimination from the group becomes impera- 
tive, and some corrective agency should then take over the 
case. It is a serious mistake to sacrifice the interests of a 
large number of children by permitting the continued pres- 
ence in their midst of a delinquent who refuses to respond to 
school measures, and whose defiant example militates against 
the establishment of a high standard of conduct. 

Preventive discipline. 'The best type of discipline is posi- 
tive rather than negative. Interesting work, frequent com- 


264 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


mendation, the setting up of objective goals of attainment, 
the use of measuring scales to stimulate self-emulation, and 
deliberate planning for the absorption of otherwise unused 
energies in worth-while activity, are good classroom meth- 
ods of rendering the individual impervious to any suggestion 
of inappropriate conduct. Direct effort in class meetings 
and through student government operates to establish class 
and school ideals, and pressure is thus brought to bear upon 
every member of the student body to live up to the reputa- 
tion which the school establishes for itself.! 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. Does living in the controlled environment of the school tend to build 
up character resistant to temptation outside of the environment? Ex- 
plain your answer. 

2. What should be the teacher’s ideal of good order? 

3. Arrange the following school misdemeanors in order of their serious- 
ness. Discuss ways of dealing with each. 

Cheating on examination. 

Teasing younger children on the way to school. 

Whispering. 

Writing a vulgar note. 

Chewing gum. 

Taking money left in the cloakroom. 

Being tardy when the class is striving for a punctuality record. 

4. In what ways does wholesome recreation contribute to moral develop- 
ment? 

5. Discuss the bearing upon character of each of the individual factors 
mentioned on page 263, in connection with the intensive study of in- 
dividual discipline cases. 

6. Read the chapter called ‘Theories of Morals” in Dewey’s Education 
and Democracy, and discuss its bearing upon the whole problem of 
moral guidance. Explain the meaning of the statement: “The moral 
and the social quality of conduct are, in the last analysis, identical 
with each other.”’ 


1 Rochester Washington Junior High School material is used with the 
kind permission of the principal, Clinton E. Kellogg. 


CHAPTER XXIV 
PSYCHOLOGY AND GENERAL GUIDANCE FACTORS 


Tue preceding chapter has brought the reader to the highest 
point from which he may view the adolescent in his own par- 
ticular educational institution, namely, at the task of shap- 
ing his moral nature. Perhaps it is well to make a brief sur- 
vey of all that has gone before and, seeing the early adoles- 
cent more or less in totality, state, in closing, a few items in 
finality. 

Résumé of the psychology of the junior high school pupil. 
Following the fundamental thesis that the educational insti- 
tution — whether kindergarten, elementary school, junior 
high school, etc. — becomes an agent of a true science of ed- 
ucation only in so far as it bases its principles and procedures 
upon the data of the pure science of psychology (the science 
of human behavior), and herein seeks in its applications to 
predict and control the behavior of the pupil, the reader has 
been led to see both the pure and applied sides of the 
adolescent problem. The successive parts of the treatise 
have sufficed to present certain outstanding features of 
adolescent behavior and its educational handling. 

Adolescence and growth. Through a survey by parts of 
the growth of the adolescing body, emphasizing especially 
the influence of glandular functions herein; a discussion of 
anatomical and physiological age, wherein a mass of data 
photographic of the gross physical development of large 
numbers of adolescing boys and girls was presented; and 


266 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


finally, a discussion of mental and pedagogical growth in > 
direct reference to the factors of anatomical and physiological 
age, it has been shown that the early teen-age is a period of 
marked advancement along all lines, that the variabilities 
among either sex or between the sexes are very marked, and 
that these facts bulk extremely large as the junior high 
school seeks to adjust itself to the variability of growth, both 
physical (anatomical and physiological) and mental (men- 
tal, educational, moral-social, religious), shown as the out- 
standing characteristic of adolescence. 

The adolescent in reaction. Jt has been repeatedly em- 
phasized that the behavior of the adolescent must be inter- 
preted constantly in reference to: (a) the situations and stim- 
uli presenting themselves, and (b) the powers of response 
resident within the individual. An analysis was made of the 
unlearned factors of response, as well as the pattern both for 
modifying these and securing new ways of responding, as 
suggested by the broad psychology of habit formation (learn- 
ing). It was made clear that, painting adolescent behavior 
in broad and significant strokes, nothing radically new en- 
ters into the determination of adolescent activity; that the 
adolescent has at his command “a gigantic stock of reacting 
mechanisms — reflexive, instinctive, or learned (habitual); 
that these latter, whether primarily physical or mental, di- 
rect or ‘escape’ mechanisms, understood by the possessor or 
not,” have become shaped during pre-adolescence in natural 
service to the instincts; and that the early adolescent period 
finds the explanation for its complexity of behavior, not so 
much in the introduction of factors hitherto extraneous to 
his make-up, as in the facts that: (a) the youth becomes nat- 


GUIDANCE FACTORS 267 


urally placed in a wider set of environing situations requiring 
adjustment, and (b) he hasin his make-up a large stock of 
reacting mechanisms shaped through pre-adolescence which © 
must enter into behavior. 

Systematic aspects of adolescent mentality. In a discus- 
sion of knowing, emotion, and volition, wherein divisions of 
mental function were logically justified quite in disregard to 
the fundamental unity of the actual psycnological operations 
themselves, there was pointed out not only the marked vari- 
ability and kinds of adolescent mentality, but also the sig- 
nificant fact that early adolescence properly may be thought 
of as terminating with the maturity of general intelligence; 
that the emotional and volitional phases of adolescence are 
in marked upheaval and flux, all pointing to the formation of 
abiding attachments, adjustments, and ideals tremendously 
important in guiding present and subsequent action; that 
the “will” of the adolescent is being trained by every activ- 
ity in which the youth is a participant, involving as it always 
has in preceding, and will in subsequent years of his life, 
nothing but the inheritance of human nature and the modifi- 
cation secured through individual experience. 

Personality in adolescence. In direct continuance of the 
preceding, the personality of youth was discussed as his 
power of total response to the situations confronting him. 
It was emphasized that personality has been in the making 
from infancy on and even long before, and that many of the 
weaknesses of character and personality manifest in the 
teen-age are the direct survival and accumulations of bad 
conditions, educational no less than social, preceding pu- 
berty; that a significant number show a marked lessening of 


268 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


capacity for adapting to the environment at adolescence, 
and, with a more or less prolonged departure from the usual 
mode of thinking, feeling, and acting, constitute trying men- 
tal cases; and finally, that normal social adaptation gener- 
ally results under frank and honest treatment, the reader be- 
ing warned to be on his guard against a Freudian tendency 
to consider all adolescent personality as disturbed in its 
depths and potentially shipwrecked. The discussion of the 
moral and religious phenomena of the period, while giving 
full emphasis to the statistics of criminality, the facts of reli- 
gious conversion, and adolescent doubt, refused to consider 
these either as abnormal or not to be understood in terms 
of the stimulus-response hypothesis basic to all behavior. 
Neither did we allege that the vast majority of adolescents 
cannot be led, or is not being led under sane school handling, 
thoughtfully and rationally to adjust boyish views in the 
light of new contacts with social and moral problems, sci- 
ence, and the broadened zone of activity generally. 

The psychology of instruction. After showing that the 
principles underlying the junior high school may be summed 
up in the following terms, immediately an outgrowth of, and 
interpretable by, the psychology of the early youth and his 
needs, namely, codrdination, differentiation, exploration, par- 
ticipation, integration, the exacting technique of guiding the 
expanding mental growth of the period into the acquirement 
of desirable learnings was presented (supervised study). The 
broadening, deepening, and utilization of the social urges was 
explained and exemplified in the socialized procedure of the 
classroom. Finally, the individual differences looming so prom- 
inent in the discussion of Chapters III and VII were found 


GUIDANCE FACTORS 269 


basic to the discussion given to instructional differences 
corresponding to ability grouping and failure prevention. 

The psychology of socialization. In showing the exact ap- 
plication made by the junior high school of the scientific 
data regarding the social instincts and their rather hetero- 
centric trend during its period, as well as the psychology of 
participation basic to the development of. all deeper emo- 
tional, sentimental, and attitudinal states of mind, a full 
presentation has been made of the way the true adolescent 
school gets itself organized as a school community; how citi- 
zenship training and student government are secured; the 
pattern of sesthetic, avocational, and social interests devel- 
oped; and finally, how the basic factors of community living 
epitomized by the junior high school are integrated and inter- 
related in such a way that experience is provided for partici- 
pating, both by giving and receiving, in many worthy group 
enterprises typical of older groups. 

The psychology of guidance. With applied psychology 
bringing one finally to the conscious attempt to predict, and 
hence control, the development of the individual as such, 
in contradistinction to its group features of control as sug- 
gested by student government, socialized recitation, ability 
grouping, etc., the discussion of the junior high school in edu- 
cational and vocational guidance was shown to prove a strik- 
ing commentary both as to its need and its high degree of 
success in taking the data, technique, and attitude of pure 
psychology and applying these in counseling. The further 
relations of guidance to health and physical training were 
presented, herein answering to degree the questions raised in 
the discussion of the physiological and anatomical spurts of 


270 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


the period (see Chapters II and III). Finally, in the moral 
guidance provided, both directly and indirectly, full applica- 
tion was made of the psychology of emotional development 
and systematization, as well as application of the dictum so 
basic to all of Section I, namely, character and personality 
become shaped for good as the environment is controlled in a 
way both negative and positive—negative with reference to 
withholding situations predetermined to call out undesirable 
reactions, and positive to give the youth opportunity and so- 
cial endorsement to “‘carry on” and learn the right through 
its doing. 

Adolescence and its educational institution in finality. 
Forgetting for the time being the seeming coldness of the 
facts of science upon which the writers have based their 
treatise, yet basing the faith they hold primarily upon these, 
let the following be said in conclusion: 

(a) Early adolescence follows known laws of growth and 
behavior, normality rather than catastrophe is its fundamen- 
tal characteristic, and the junior high school can shape its 
course to make this normality secure. 

(b) While highly effective as a corrective agency, the jun- 
ior high schoo! can do its legitimate work only as earlier ed- 
ucational organizations — elementary school, kindergarten, 
home, Sunday School — look forward to its time and lay a 
proper basis of experience for shaping the instincts, learnings, 
etc., the individualizing junior high school may properly 
expect to find among its entrants; finally, the senior high 
school needs to adjust to the output of its precursor and give 
its tenth-graders a chance, else inestimable values of char- 
acter development become lost. 


GUIDANCE FACTORS 271 


(c) The true teacher of the adolescent, equaled perhaps 
only by the kindergartner, has unlimited faith in his pupils 
and proceeds, perhaps at times blindly, yet always hopefully 
and expectantly, upon the belief that, given opportunity for 
expression and encouragement, the personality and charac- 
ter of even the most difficult one will develop toward the goal 
of proper desires. . 

(d) Finally, the junior high school is education’s answer to 
the call of democracy for democracy. Realizing that all its 
children are not equally gifted, true democracy demands for 
each an equal, hence not the same, opportunity to develop to 
the very limit set upon one’s capacity, to the end that each 
may find his proper place in life wherein he may be economi- 
cally independent, socially useful, and contented. ‘This is 
the fundamental purpose of the institution, shaping its 
course by the known facts of adolescent psychology. 


QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 


1. What major possibilities for the application of psychological facts in 
junior high school can you suggest as worthy additions to those treated 
in the text? 

@. How far should the junior high school share with other agencies in the 
training of its pupils, for example, neighborhood churches? 

8. So far as the evidence from psychology is concerned, how should the 
elementary school prepare for and articulate with the junior high 
school? 

4, Catalogue developments, both physical and mental, the product of the 
junior high school may be expected to bring upon entering the senior 
high school. 

5. What problems of adjustment, both in machinery, materials and atti- 
tudes, may the senior high school be expected to make? 

6. Search for instances where the pure facts of adolescent behavior, as 
discussed in Section I, are overlooked or not logically applied in 
Section II. 


272 PSYCHOLOGY OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL PUPIL 


SELECTED REFERENCES FOR PART III 


Bagley, W. C. School Discipline. (1915.) 

Bloomfield, M. Readings in Vocational Guidance. (1915.) 

Brewer, J. M. The Vocational Guidance Movement. (1918.) 

Cubberley, E. P. The Principal and His School. (1923.) 

Davis, J. B. Vocational and Moral Guidance. (1914.) 

Hollingworth, H. L. Vocational Psychology. (1919.) 

Hudelson, E. ‘Society at Work’’; in School and Society, July 3, 1920. 

Lapp, J. A., and Mote, C. H. Learning to Earn. (1915.) 

Link, H.C. Employment Psychology. (1919.) - 

McCracken, T. C., and Lamb, H. E. Occupational Information in the 
Elementary School. (1923.) 

Myrick, G. A. Progressive Education. (1923.) 

Parsons, F. Choosing a Vocation. (1909.) 

Perry, A. C. Discipline as a School Problem. (1915.) 

Reed, A. Junior Wage Earners. (1920.) 

Sears, J. B. Classroom Organization and Control. (1918.) 

Shaw, E. R. School Hygiene. (1901.) 

Starbuck, E. D., et al. Character Education Methods: The Iowa Plan. 
(1922.) 

Terman, L. M. Hygiene of the School Child. (1914.) 


INDEX 


Ability grouping, instructional differ- 
ences corresponding to, 184-97; 
adaptations for low-mentality 
groups, 190; adaptations for high- 
mentality groups, 192; classroom 
adaptations, 194; lesson sum- 
maries, 195, 196; instruction in 
non-homogeneous groups, 196; re- 
lation to failure prevention, 200. 

Absence from school, a factor in 
failure, 200. 

Accomplishment, school, and adoles- 
cent intelligence, 92. 

Accomplishment quotients, 
quency distribution of, 93. 

Achievement tests, a3 & grouping 
basis, 185. 

Activity, random or excess, ia; 
directed, 73; adaptive, 74; repeti- 
tive, 74; coordinated, 74. 

Adaptations for low-mentality 
groups, 190; for high-mentality 
groups, 192; acceleration, 192; 
enrichment, 193; classroom, 194. 

Adaptive activity, 74. 

Addams, Jane, 148. 

Adolescence, psychology of, 5; defini- 
tions, 11; variation in pubescence, 
12; gross bodily growth, 13; 
growth of nervous system, 16; 
glandular system, 18; factors 
affecting anatomical and physio- 
logical growth, 31; magnitude and 
rate of alleged changes, 133; per- 
sonality in, 126-60; 267. 

Adolescence and growth, 11-47, 265; 
physical growth, 1 1-24 anatomical 
and physiological age, 25-33; 
psychological and pedagogical as- 
pects, 34-47. 

Adolescent in reaction, the, 48-80, 
266. 


fre- 










Adolescents, educational treatment 


of, 89; sex differences among, 94. 


Adrenals, the, 21. 
Advancement, in school, 44. 
Age, anatomical and physiological, 


25-33; measurable factors in 
anatomical age, 26; Roentgeno- 
grams as criteria of anatomical 
age, 28; physiological, 29: factors 
affecting growth at adolescence, 31. 


Ages, mental, overlapping of, 87. 
Ambition, adolescent, 120. 
Amentia, 135. 

Anatomical age, 26. 

Anatomical 


and physiological 
growth, factors affecting, 31. 


Angell, J. R., classification of re- 


sponses, 57, 115. 


Applied aspect of psychology, 4. 
Assembly, 


school, integrating 


force, 230. 


as 


Assignment, in divided-period plan 


of supervised study, 171. 


Athletics, 215. 
Atmosphere, or ‘‘temper,”’ of school, 


value, 251. 
Attitude, wrong, a factor in failure, 
203. 
Automatisms, 139. 
Avocational and_ social activities, 
920-25; worthy use of leisure, 220% 
club activities, 221; club program, 
922: the entering pupil, 223; 
exhibit of work, 224; social cour- 
tesy and good manners, 224, 


Bagley, W. C., quoted, 43. 
Baldwin, B. T., upon measurable 
factors in anatomical age, 26; upon 
mental age, 36, 40. 

Behavior, types of unlearned tenden- 
cies, 52; classification of, 56-61; 


Q74 


and the junior high school, 65; 
learned ways of, 77. 

Bodily growth, gross, 13; skeletal 
system, 13; muscular system, 13; 
respiratory system, 14; digestive 
system, 15; circulatory system, 15; 
reproductive system, 16. 

Book, W. F., upon intelligence of 
high school seniors, 91, 122. 


Campaigns, health, 247; school, as 
integrating activities, 227. 

Change of school, a factor in failure, 
ZOVNZOZ: 

Character building, 252. 

Charters, W. W., upon instinct in 
relation to habit, 77. 

Chronological age, 25. 


Circulatory system, gross bodily 
growth, 15. 

Citizenship training, and student 
government, 213-19; as _ school 


function, 213; factors in worthy 
citizenship, 214; the work of the 
school, 214; training through play, 
215; 

Class-meeting, weekly, 210. 

Classification, of instincttve  re- 
sponses, 54, 56; of adolescent 
behavior, 61. 

Clubs, in junior high schools, 221. 

College, adolescents in, 92. 

Community, school, organization of, 
208-12; school as life experience, 
208; junior high school as transi- 
tion school, 209; home-room sec- 
tion, 209; duties of teacher, 209; 
time allotments, 210; weekly class- 
meeting, 210; the school commu- 
nity, 211. 

Complex learning situations, illus- 
trations of, 74. 

Composition, written, typical ‘‘ how- 
to-study’”’ directions, 176. 

Conduct, school, 130. 

Conference, personal, in study of 
individual, 239. 

Content of studies, transition in, 
164; socialization of, 179. 


INDEX 


Conversion, adolescent, 
chology of, 151. 

Coérdinated activity, 74. 

Coérdination, the junior high school 
as a means, 163. 

Corrective discipline, 262. 

Course of study, and the guidance 
period, 242. 

Courtesy, training in, 224. 

Crampton, C. W., upon physio- 
logical age, 29. 

Criminality, and adolescence, 146. 

Criteria, of sciences, 1, 5; of ana- 
tomical age, 28; of physiological 
age, 30. 

Cultivation, of instincts, 66. 

Curricula, differentiated, 164. 

Curve, mental growth, the, 36, 37. 


the psy- 


Dearborn, W. F., investigation of 
intelligence quotients, 98. 

Dementia, 135. 

Dementia preecox, 137. 

Development, mental, 45; correla- 
tion with physical growth, 35; 
periodic, 83; concomitant, 84. 

Differences, instructional, 184-97. 


Differentiation, in junior high 
schools, 164. 
Digestive system, gross bodily 
growth, 15. 


Directed activity, 73. 

Direction, of instincts, 66. 

Directions, ‘how to study,” typical, 
L751 ZG: 

Disciplinary cases, 131. 

Discipline, in junior high school, 130, 
261; corrective, 262; preventive, 
263. 

Diseases, organic and functional, 136. 

Disintegrating tendencies, in junior 
high school organization, 226. 

Divided-period plan, of supervised 
study, 170; review, 170; assigne- 
ment, 171; silent study, 171; lesson 
plan, 173; summary, 172. 

Doll, E. A., anthropometric meas- 
ures, 35; upon median general 
intelligence age, 97. 


INDEX 


Doubt, adolescent, the psychology 
of, 152. 

Downey Will-Temperament ‘Test, 
124. 

Ductless glands, the, 19. 


Educational and vocational guid- 
ance, 233-44; necessity, 233; 
nature of problem, 2338; study of 
individual, 234; the gifted child, 
240; dissemination of information, 
241; guidance period, 242; place- 
ment, 244. 

Elimination of instincts, 67. 

Emotion and the adolescent, 103-13; 
general psychology of the emo- 
tions, 103; organs of emotional 
response, 105; genetic study of 
emotion, 106; adolescent emotions, 
107; control of emotional reac- 
tions, 111; opportunity of the 
school, 112. 

Emotions, adolescent, 107; modified 
by experience, 108; repressions of, 
109. 

Employment, educational, or con- 
trol of instincts, 66. 

Endocrine glands, the, 19. 

Enrichment, in high-mentality 
groups, 193. 

Environment, the school’s oppor- 
tunity to control, 112; controlled, 
as means of moral training, 250. 

Exhibit, of club work, 224. 

Experimentation,opportunity offered 
by junior high school, 166. 

Explicit and implicit responses, 49, 
50. 


Factors in anatomical age, measur- 
able, 23. 

Faculty meetings, as integrating in- 
fluence, 229. 

Failure, causes of, 200; absence from 
school, 200; change of school, 201; 
wrong attitude, 203. 

Failure prevention, 198-207; ad- 
ministrative difficulties, 198; rela- 
tion of ability grouping, 200; 


Q75 


causes of, 200; remedial measures 
for, 205; study-coach organiza- 
tion, 205; unassigned teacher, 206; 
summer school, 206. 

Failures, school, diagnosis and treat- 
ment, 132. 

Fear psychoses, 140. 

Feeling states, general psychology 
of, 104. 

Form, lesson, socialization of, 181. 

Freud, Sigmund, as_ psychologist, 
63. 

Freudian psychology, and adolescent 
pathology, 141-48. 


Gates, A., classification of instincts, 
58. 

George Junior Republic, the, 148. 

Gifted child, the, 240. 

Glands, duct and ductless, 18. 

Glandular system, growth and fune- 
tioning of, 18; glands, duct and 
ductless, 18; thyroid, 20; supra- 
renals, 21; pineal, 22; pituitary, 
22; sexual, 22. 

Government, student, as an organi- 
zation for citizenship training, 215; 
desirable characteristics, 215; typi- 
cal organization, meetings, 218. 

Grouping, ability, 184; teachers’ 
ratings as basis, 184; intelligence 
tests, 185; achievement tests, 185; 
combined score and rating, 185. 

Growth, physical, 11-24; gross 
bodily growth, 18; growth of the 
nervous system, 16; glandular 
system, 18; ages characterizing, 
25; factors affecting, 31; mentality 
and gross physical traits, 34; 
curve, 36; predictability of adoles- 
cent intelligence, 38; correlation 
with physical and physiological 
growth, 39; stages, 42; peda- 
gogical application, 44; physical 
training, 44; school advancement, 
44: industrial and part-time work, 
45: mental development, 45. 

Growth and adolescence, 265. 

Guidance, 233-72; educational and 


276 


vocational, 233-44; health, 245- 
49; moral, 250-64; the problem, 
250; controlled environment, 250; 


“temper” of the school, 251; 
character building, 252; honor 
codes, 253, 254; inculcation of 


ideals, 257; direct moral instruc- 
tion, 258; indirect moral instruc- 
tion, 259; individual moral guid- 
ance, 260; discipline, 261; factors 
in morale, 261; corrective disci- 
pline, 262; preventive discipline, 
263; general, 265-72; psychology 
of, 269. 


Habit, instinct in relation to, 77. 

Habit fixation, laws of, 76. 

Habits, in unlearned behavior, 53. 

Habitual element in response, the, 
71-80; material for learning, 71; 
meaning of learning, 72; stages in 
learning, 73; complex learning 
situations, 74; certain laws of 
learning, 76; instinct in relation to 
habit, 77; learned ways of be- 
havior, 77; learned behavior illus- 
trated, 78. 

Health, during adolescence, 32. 

Health guidance, 245-49; health 
inspection, 245; physical training, 
246; health campaigns, 247; sex 
instruction, 247; work of teacher, 
249. 

Height, growth curves in, 27. 

Hereditary responses, explicit and 
implicit, 50. 

High school, study of entrants in, 90. 

High-mentality groups, adaptations 
for, 192. 

Hines, H. C., Measuring Intelligence, 
86, 96. 

History, typical 
directions, 175. 

History lesson, summaries, 195, 196. 

Home-room section, the, 209; duties 
of teacher, 209. 

Home visiting, in study of indi- 
vidual, 240. 

Honor, Code of, 254. 


“* how-to-study,”’ 


INDEX 


Hypothesis, stimulus-response, 48; 
as illustrated by religion, 155. 
Hysteria, 137. 


Ideals, adolescent, 118; inculcation 
of, 257. 

Individual, study of, 234; question- 
naire method, 234; psychological 
testing, 238; personal conference, 
239; home visiting, 240; moral 
guidance, 260. 

Individual interests, 61. 

Industrial and part-time work, 45. 

Information, educational and voca- 
tional, dissemination of, 241. 

Inspection, health, 245. 

Instinct, in relation to habit, 77. 

Instinctive element in response, the, 
52-70; types of unlearned ten- 
dencies to behavior, 52; neural 
aspect of unlearned behavior, 53; 
problem of classification, 54; types 
of classification, 56; rédle_ of 
instincts in man, 58; trilogy of 
adolescent behavior, 61; adoles- 
cent behavior and the junior high 
school, 65; educational employ- 
ment, 66; control of instincts, 66; 
how acquired reactions modify 
instinctive tendencies, 68. 

Instinets, difficulty of classification, 
55; the réle of, 58; control of, 66. 

Instruction, junior high school, 
psychology of, 65, 268; direct 
moral, 258; indirect moral, 259; 
sex, 247. 

Instruction methods in junior high 
school, 168-207; supervised study, 
168-76; socialized procedure, 177— 
83; ability grouping, 184-97; 
failure prevention, 198-207. 

Instructional differences, correspond- 
ing to ability groups, 184-97; 
grouping bases, 184-90; adapta- 
tions for low-mentality groups, 
190; adaptations for high-mental- 
ity groups, 192; classroom adapta- 
tions, 194; instruction in non- 
homogeneous groups, 196. 


INDEX 


Integrating forces in school commu- 
nity life, 226-31; disintegrating 
tendencies in junior high school 
organization, 226; school cam- 
paigns, 227; faculty meetings, 229; 
school assembly, 230. 

Intelligence, predictability of, 38; 
measurement of, 86; general, 88; 
maturity of, 96; rating, 120. 

Intelligence and school accomplish- 
ment, 92. 

Intelligence quotient curves, 38. 

Intelligence quotients, mean, 39. 

Intelligence tests, as grouping basis, 
185, 187, 188, 189. 

Interests, adolescent, 120. 


Junior high school, study of entrants 
in, 89; underlying principles, 163- 
67; codrdination, 163; differentia- 
tion, 164; exploration, 165; parti- 
cipation, 166; integration, 166. 


Knowing, and the adolescent, 81- 
102; general psychology of know- 
ing, 81; recent important develop- 
ments, 82; conditions of adolescent 
knowledge, 83; significance of 
knowledge in development, 85; 
measurement of intelligence, 86; 
overlapping of mental ages, 87; 
general intelligence and adolescent 
groups, 88; educational treatment 
of adolescents, 89; significance of 
studies of adolescent intelligence, 
98; other kinds of intelligence, 99. 

Knowledge, adolescent, conditions 
of, 83; significance in adolescent 
development, 85. 


Learned behavior, illustration of, 78. 

Learned element in response, the, 
71-80. 

Learning, material for, 71; meaning 
of, 72; stages in, 73; complex 
situations, 74; laws of, 76. 

Leisure, training in worthy use of, 
220. 

Lesson form, socialization of, 181. 


Q77 


Lesson plan, specimen of supervised 
study, 173. 

Lesson summaries, 195, 196. 

Low-mentality groups, adaptations 
for, 190. 

Mathematics, typical ‘* how-to- 
study ”’ directions, 175. 

Maturity of intelligence, 96. 

McDougall, W., upon instincts and 
emotions, 57. 

Measurement of adolescent intelli- 
gence, 86. 

Mental age, mean, 41. 

Mental ages, overlapping of, 87. 

Mental development, 45. 

Mental growth curve, the, 36. 

Mentality, adolescent, systematic 
aspects of, 81-125, 267; knowing 
and the adolescent, 81-102; emo- 
tion and the adolescent, 103-13; 
volition and the adolescent, 114—- 
25; pathology of, 135. 

Mentality and gross physical traits, 
34. 

Method, transition in, 164. 

Moral growth and training, 147. 

Moral guidance, 250-64. 

Morale, factors in establishment of, 
261. 

Murdock, K., and Sullivan, L. R., 
study of mental, physical, and 
physiological growth, 39. 


Muscular system, gross_ bodily 
growth, 13. 

Needs, religious, 154. 

Nervous system, growth of, 16; 


little neural change, 16. 

Neural aspect, of unlearned behavior, 
53. 

Non-homogeneous groups, instruc- 
tion in, 196. 


Occupational studies, teaching 
methods in, 243. 
Organization, transition in, 164; 


disintegrating tendencies in, 226. 
Overlapping, of mental ages, 87. 


278 


Participation, keynote of junior high 
school activities, 166. 

Part-time work, 45. 

Pathology, of adolescent mentality, 
135; amentia versus dementia, 
135; organic versus functional 
diseases, 136; major types, 136; 
“storm and stress’ period, 140; 
Freudian psychology, 141. 

Personality, adolescent nature and 
significance, 126-34, 267; mean- 
ing, 126; study, 127; school con- 
duct, 130; disturbance of, 135-45; 
pathology of adolescent mentality, 
185; Freudian psychology, 141; 
maladjusted, 145; moral and 
religious, 146-60; criminality and 
adolescence, 146; moral growth 
and training, 147; adolescent 
conversion, 151; adolescent doubt, 
152; needs of the adolescent, 154; 
stimulus-response hypothesis illus- 
trated by religion, 155. 

Physical growth of adolescents: 
definition of terms, 11; growth 
and bodily parts, 13; gross bodily 
growth, 13; growth of nervous 
system, 16; growth and func- 
tioning of glandular system, 18. 

Physical training, 44, 246. 

Physical traits and mentality, 34. 

Physiological age, 29; criteria, 30. 

Pineal gland, the, 22. 

Pituitary gland, the, 22. 

Placement, vocational, 244. 

Play, citizenship training through, 
21d. 

Predictability of adolescent intelli- 
gence, 38. 

Preventive discipline, 263. 

Pringle, R. W., quoted, 17. 

Program, club, establishment of, 
222) 

Project, the, as a socialized content, 
179. 

Psychological testing, in study of 
individual, 238. 

Psychology, as a science, 1; nature 
and scope of, 3; applied aspect, 4; 


INDEX 


adolescent, 4, 265; of instruction, 
65, 268; of knowing, 81; of emo- 
tions, 108; of volition, 114; 
Freudian and adolescent, 141; of 
adolescent conversion, 151; of 
adolescent doubt, 152; of guid- 
ance, 269; of socialization, the, 
269; and general guidance factors, 
265-72; résumé, 265; adolescence 
and growth, 265; adolescent in 
reaction, 266; adolescent men- 
tality, 267; personality in adoles- 
cence, 267; psychology of instruc- 
tion, 268; psychology of socializa- 
tion, 269; psychology of guidance, 
269; adolescence and the junior 
high school, 270. 

Psychoses, fear, 140. 

Pubescence, variation in, 12. 

Pupil, relation to supervised study, 
174. 


Questionnaire method, in study of 
individual, 234. 


Random activity, 73. 
Ratings, teachers’, as grouping 
basis, 184, 187, 188, 189. 
Reaction, the adolescent in, 48-80, 
266; four types of possibilities, 
49; stimulus-response hypothesis, 
48-—51;the instinctive or unlearned 
element, 52-70; acquired, 68; the 
habitual or learned element, 71- 
80; emotional, control of, 111. 
Reflex arc, the unit of activity, 53. 
Reflexes, complex groupings of, 53. 
Religion, the psychology of, 155. 
Religious personality, the, 149. 
Remedial measures, for failure pre- 
vention, 205. 
Repetitive activity, 74. 
Report cards, 255, 256. 
Reproductive system, gross bodily 
growth, 16. 
Respiratory system, 
growth, 14. 
Response, the nature of, 49; the 
unlearned element in, 52; classi- 


gross bodily 


INDEX 


fications of, 57, 58; the learned 
element in, 71; emotional, organs 
of, 106. 

Responses, instinctive, classification 
of, 54, 56. | 

Review, in divided-period plan of 
supervised study, 170. 

Roentgenograms, as 
anatomical age, 28. 


criteria of 


School community, the, 211. 

School work, citizenship training 
through, 214. 

Score and rating, 
grouping basis, 185. 

Seniors, high school, intelligence of, 
91. 

Sex, Freudian beliefs, 142. 

Sex differences in intelligence among 
adolescents, 94. 

Sex impulses in adolescence, 62. 

Sex instruction, 247. 

Sexual glands, the, 22. 

Silent-study period, in  divided- 
period plan of supervised study, 
7A; 

Skeletal system, gross bodily growth, 
rosy 

Social activities, 220-25. 

Social impulses, in adolescence, 64. 

Social service, junior high school 
training, 166. 

Socialization, of lesson form, 181; in 
junior high school, 208-31; or- 
ganization of school community, 
208-12; citizenship training, 213- 
19; avocational and social activi- 
ties, 220-25; integrating forces, 
226-31; psychology of, 269. 

Socialized procedure in the class- 
room, 177-83; the class a social 
group, 177; socialization of con- 
tent, 179; project as a socialized 
content, 179; study procedure, 
180; socialization of the lesson 
form, 181; advantages, 183. 

Stages of growth, 42. 

Standards, concrete,for honor recom- 
mendation, 253. 


combined, as 


279 


Stenquist, J. L., investigations of 
adolescent intelligence, 100. 

Stimulus, the nature of, 49. 

Stimulus-response hypothesis, the, 
48-51; the person versus the thing, 
48; possibilities of adolescent 
reaction, 49; nature of the stimu- 
lus, 49; nature of the response, 
49; as illustrated by religion, 155. 

‘Storm and stress’”’ period, the, 140. 

Student government, as an organiza- 
tion for citizenship training, 215; 
desirable characteristics of, 215; 
typical organization, 216; meet- 
ings, 218. 

Study, supervised, 168-76; a junior 
high-school function, 168; nature, 
168; factors, 169; divided-period 
plan, 170; relation to teacher, 172; 
relation to pupil, 174; procedure 
in socialized lesson, 180. 

Study-coach organization, a reme- 
dial measure for failure preven- 
tion, 205. 

Summary, in divided-period plan of 
supervised study, 172. 

Summer school, a remedial measure 
for failure prevention, 206. 

Supervised study, 168-76; divided- 
period plan, 170; relation to 
teacher, 172; relation to pupil, 
174. 

Suprarenals, 21. 


Teacher, relation to supervised 
study, 172; home-room, duties of, 
209; time allotments, 210; unas- 
signed, a remedial measure for 
failure prevention, 206; work in 
health guidance, 249. 

Tendencies, types of unlearned, 52; 
instinctive, how modified by 
acquired reactions, 68. 

Terman, L. M., The Hygiene of the 
School Child, 29; The Intelligence 
of School Children, 87, 90; The 
Measurement of Intelligence, 95. 

Tests, intelligence and achievement, 
as grouping basis, 185. 


280 


Thorndike, E. L.; classification of 
responses, 58; quoted, 85, 133. 

Thyroid gland, the, 20. 

Time allotments, for the home-room 
teacher, 210. 

Tracy, F., quoted, 64, 116. 

Training, physical, 44, 246; moral, 
147; citizenship, 213; through the 
work of the school, 214; through 
play, 215. 

Traits, adolescent, in their volitional 
relationship, 122. 

Transition, accomplished by junior 
high school, 164, 209. 


Unlearned tendencies, types of, 52. 


Variability of growth, 31, 34, 266. 

Vocational ambition, 121. 

Vocational guidance, 233-44; nature 
of problem, 233; study of indi- 


INDEX 


vidual, 234; the gifted child, 240: 
dissemination of information, 241; 
guidance period, 242; placement, 
244, 

Volition, and the adolescent, 114-25; 
general psychology of volition, 
114; what volition includes, 115; 
adolescent volition, 116; adoles- 
cent ideals, 118; adolescent ambi- 
tion, interests and intelligence, 
120; adolescent traits in their 
volitional relationship, 122; adoles- 
cence and the training of will, 124. 


Watson, J. B., quoted, 50, 59, 106, 
128. 

Whipple, G. M., upon the sex urge, 
62; quoted, 118. 

Will, training of, 124. 

Will-profile, chart of, 123. 

Wooley, Helen T., and Ferris E., 132. 


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